Last week I got the flu, which is usually as enjoyable as getting a TSA full-body scan. One thing that happens when I get the flu is that my appetite goes south for about two weeks. Things are just now getting back to normal but for a while there it didn’t look good for our hero.
While I was sick though I listened to a message from Andy Stanley about appetities, of all topics. Appetites are insatiable, no matter how satisfied we might feel. We eat a meal and say that we’re stuffed, we couldn’t possibly eat another bite, and three hours later we’re standing at the fridge door, taking inventory of our options.
Food, sleep, sex, possessions, power, our appetites can be ruthless at times. We take the shortcuts to being filled and find our appetites are ruined, sometimes forever. Sometimes when we feel hunger pangs we might eat a small snack to “tide us over until dinner” but that only works well in our physical appetite. We might think that if we take a small sampling of what might whet our appetite that our appetites will be appeased.
We have those voices and thoughts that whisper into our minds that if we could just get the next greatest ______ by Sony or Dodge or Apple that our appetite for owning things will be appeased. We allow marketing experts to hijack our brains, brand our thoughts with their logo, and then we follow those breadcrumb trails back to their dealerships like the willing victims that we are.
The urge for sex can be distorted, maybe even for life, with one bad decision to steal someone’s virginity that was never yours in the first place. Sometimes it comes under just “the power of the moment” or “we’re going to get married anyways so what’s the big deal?”
If you throw that appetite for power into overdrive you can become so consumed with your career and the almighty dollar that you lose your family, your spouse, and your dignity, all for one more dollar and another and another and another.
Whatever our appetites may be they will never be fully satisfied in this world. Our fight is usually not in deciding what is good or bad, it’s usually deciding between what’s good and what’s best. We need to quit snacking and let God fill our appetites with His very best.