Proverbs 27:6: He who is satisfied loathes honey, but to the hungry soul any bitter thing is sweet. (AMP)
I usually cook meals on weekends and prepare dishes for us to eat during the week. For some dishes, that actually works well because they seem to taste better after they've been in the refrigerator overnight. But for other dishes, I have to be careful; they spoil relatively quickly.
One time I had a taste for some chicken I had baked over the weekend. I took it out of the refrigerator and smelled it. It smelled “okay” but certainly not like the day after I baked it. So I had a choice to make…satisfy my appetite for baked chicken or find something else to eat. The fact that I had not eaten all day made the decision easier. So I put some of the chicken in the microwave.
While heating it up my wife came into the kitchen and asked, “What is that smell? Is that the chicken you fixed the other day?” I told her yes. She then said, “Honey, it doesn’t smell right. You’re going to get sick if you eat that. Find something else to eat.” Driven by my appetite for chicken, my hunger, and my desire to do what I wanted to do, I told her, “Hey it’s going to be okay. Remember I grew up on leftovers. I know what I’m doing.” She looked at me for a moment and then said, “Okay, it’s your stomach. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Well you can imagine what happened a few hours later after eating the chicken.
The trials of life and less than “ideal” childhoods can create emotional “hungers and appetites” that drive the decisions we make in life. The need for acceptance, love, respect, security, emotional healing, companionship, and to feel “good” about ourselves can drive us to make unwise choices. Fear and anxiety, in their many forms, can drive us to call what is clearly “bitter” to be “sweet” in order to justify decisions we’ve already made. Often the consequences of our unwise decisions come later in ways we don’t expect: “We reap what we sow, more than we sow, later than we sow.” (Dr. Charles Stanley)
In Romans 7 the apostle Paul experienced an inner struggle. He wanted to do what was right in the eyes of God, but the “hungers and appetites” of his flesh were at war against him, pushing him to do wrong. But in Romans 8 he outlines a solution: We have to make a decision to “walk” (conduct our lives) according to the leading of the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in every believer. Having a mind set on the Spirit brings life and peace.
What’s driving your decisions lately? Do you have a mindset led by the Spirit or by the flesh? One way to tell: Are you content such that you are not tempted by the “honey” in life, or are you calling what’s clearly bitter “sweet”?
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