Just finished lunch … well, if that’s what you want to call it.  Having opened the refrigerator in the back of my office, I was more than a little disappointed to find nothing in it except for a Styrofoam container of left-over baked beans from a few days ago.  Now I know that beans actually have quite a bit of nutritional value. They are a great source of protein, are filled with vitamins, and the barbeque sauce offered some much needed carbs.  It’s just that beans, by themselves, are not what I consider a meal … too third-world for me.  And that’s when I realized something.  I had forgotten why I was looking in the fridge in the first place.  I was hungry, I needed sustenance and I was confusing my needs with my wants.  I was dismissing the nutritional value of beans in favor of a full meal deal that really wasn’t available right then.

I was discussing the battle with a friend a few days ago, about how so much just seems to come at us, all of the time, and about our tendency to start looking around for fixes.  Some of us look to donuts, others to tequila. Some of us just want someone to wrap their arms around us and some would rather be left alone.  Among believers, it is often the need to find the newest church or the latest Christian fad.  But occasionally, we will see a pastor or teacher arise whose response is simply to draw nearer to Jesus, to walk with him and listen to his voice.  And I think, ‘That’s not what I consider a meal … too third world for me.

You see, I am again mistaking my need for sustenance with my desire for comfort.  It’s not that I am against comfort … or the latest teaching or the newest movement.  I have personally been profoundly impacted by many such things.  It’s just that in the moment, when my head is spinning and my stomach churning, when I am faint with hunger, that I need to remember what really nourishes.

I just finished lunch … baked beans.  Bring on the rest of the day!

To the King,

David