All You Can Eat

Have you ever done it -- pushed away from the Thanksgiving table where the feast for eyes became more than your belly could handle?  Or a last smooth mouthful of too, too, good cheesecake, or make it that perfectly grilled steak, that was three bites too big, but you just had to finish it?  You loosened the grip of your button on your distended abdomen and groaned with the last flavor of pleasure on your tongue knowing regret was already setting into your gut… tell me I'm not alone in having behaved so foolishly!  I've been on a binge and I don't feel good.

We returned to Haiti this past Wednesday after a 5 week visit to the United States.  The trip was full of truly wonderful things!  We had the pleasure of going to the CAFO Orphan Care Summit held in Chicago where we were able to reconnect with wonderful friends and family.  We had happy reunions with our parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces and cousins.  We had coffee and dinners with friends and supports where we experienced really meaningful fellowship and prayer.  We spoke in church where supporters gathered to listen and be challenged, and encouraged us in our work.

And in addition to all of that we had marvelous access to healthcare, and food, and technology, and music, and media, and shopping venues and… I binged on it all.  I overindulged until not only my waistline further bulged, but my senses and spirit, too, and yet I consumed more.  I packed it all in, rationalizing all the way, telling myself my time in the US was short and I had to enjoy all the good things available in the land of endless ice-cream, 99 cent nail polishes, falling prices, and wifi; telling myself I was living no differently than those around me and that it was ok to want more, to fill my time, to get the most out of the visit.

Before leaving Haiti, I was talking with a friend of mine, Magalie.  We were talking about the expense of children's clothing here and I told her I could get some clothes for her baby at a garage sale.  Do you know I have trouble explaining to her what an ice-cream pail is, or a cereal isle, let alone the concept of a garage sale!  How is she even to imagine such a land where the majority of the population buys so much that a year or two later the items are still good enough and plentiful enough to be sold out of the car house?  We laughed about that… but then I spent hours going to garage sales, looking for "good deals" on things from my mental lists of wants while numbing my mind with the endless browsing of stuff another did not want and I did not need; finding fancy or fascination here and there, but moving from sale to sale with unexplainable drive and boredom.

Oh how I love the wonderful blessing of where I have come from!  The US (and most of the western world) overflows with abundance and I am grateful for the the place God allowed me to be born.  However (hey, you know that was coming, right?), and this certainly comes as no surprise to most who read this, we are so spoiled by surplus, so lulled by luxury that we have come to expect it as normal.  What's worse, is that our blessing has become burden because of our overindulgence.  Just like eating too much, we can overdo the really good things all around us.  We keep shoveling it in because of the momentary pleasure, but in the end we become culturally obese -- burdened by the weight of managing all the STUFF in our lives.  We complain about our kids being entitled but we feed them entertainment pieces worth hundreds of dollars and hardly blink when a 3 year old picks up someones costly smartphone and pages through photos.

I say "we" because I am realizing how entangled I am.  Even after living in a place where I see and know poverty all around me, I feel nearly helpless to resist the lure of the binge when I return to the States, and I'm not sure what to say about all this except that I am disgusted with myself.  Disgusted not that I spent time deepening important relationships but that I am so easily enticed by all that glitters and am so quick to gobble up shiny bits in the gravel, like a barnyard hen.  Disgusted that I am not yet in a place where my contentment is better rooted in Christ's FULLNESS, where I know I find real satiation, but don't live like it.

This week I found myself by the sink at my old chore of washing dishes in warmish soapy water, dipping in bleach water, and placing the first plate in the dish rack, followed by two cups, a spoon, another plate… and I realize that for the first time in weeks I felt completely content.  It would be more fun to be visiting an antique shop, sitting for a cool blueberry pomegranate smoothie at LuLu Beans, or even getting groceries in air-conditioned comfort.   I do not particularly like doing dishes, especially not as the sweat beads, gathers, and then trickles down my hairline toward my back, but in this single moment I feel a return to simple routine that grounds me.  There is little more to want or need, little more to think about, only my own breath and the clinks and clunks of the dishes in the pan before me.  And I realize I have been awakened by a holy moment -- a God-space… a place where he meets me and teaches me to be content not with stuff but with things unseen, to be in a space where I can sense His nearness, and in that space I am aware that he has me right where he needs me to be to teach me.  Right where he can get my attention, reign in my desire, disrupt the binge, fill me up with Him so I will quit hungering for that which does not satisfy.

Perhaps one of Satan's greatest stronghold's in the West is consumption.  There is nothing innately wrong with having and wanting things (or activities or entertainment or education or busyness, etc), but all out obsession with options and gadgets and endless stuff to fill our homes, occupy our moments, and protect our future, is not of God.

I saw a quote today by Timothy Keller.  "A sure sign of the presence of idolatry is inordinate anxiety, anger, or discouragement when our idols are thwarted. So if we lose a good thing, it makes us sad, but if we lose an idol, it devastates us."

So I need to think about what gets in the way of me being fully satisfied in Christ.  What makes you and I anxious or angry or discouraged to think about doing without?  I may have felt slightly smug at being able to give up my home and many of it's contents to move to Haiti -- certainly self-righteous, but I realize now that while that may have been a wonderful grace-filled moment of trust in God, I am far from immune to the desire to refill all those places of "loss" with more stuff instead of with Christ.  And I do feel anxiety and anger when I think about having to "give up" certain things or areas of my life.  I think I have some internal housekeeping to do…

The Bible addresses the many layers of our wanting and seeking after stuff.  Most of Luke 12 talks about trusting God and not storing it all up for ourselves and sums it up in verse 35 by saying,
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

So, I am asking God to to move my heart in another direction.  It's not what my weak will wants right now, but in my faith-filled moments,  I want to treasure the things Jesus did and live like I know it.  I am most certainly a work in progress and will be until the end of my earthly days, but I want contentment and I don't want to put idols before God.  I know such vices exist in all places and cultures and I can find other things to flaw my character with, but right now I will submit to the working of the spirit in my heart, stay where I am, and see what our good God has in store for me.