It is way too easy for me to live off of junk food. I hate to admit it, but it tastes good. It just does. The more I eat it the more it becomes tastier, when it really hasn’t become tastier it’s just that I have become addicted to it. I periodically slip into these eating habits. One of the problems with subsisting off of crap food though, is that it makes me sick. My complexion suffers, my energy is zapped, and when it gets really bad( let’s just be real here) I can get pretty chubby. However, there is an adequate solution. All I have to do is work out some, take daily multivitamins, and occasionally supplement my diet with a few nutrient–packed foods and I’m good to go, problem solved, chubby crisis averted! Just enough to get by fairly well without having to give up anything.
The problem with these little fixes though, is that they can never enable me to reap the rewards of a truly healthy lifestyle. I’ve been on the healthy eating end of the spectrum and those of you that have too will agree with me when I say it is better. But it is hard, the other way is just so darn convenient you know?
I hate to admit it, but It is very easy for me to fall into this pattern with my faith. So often I treat God like a multivitamin or one of those lame 5-minute fat-blasting cardio workouts that you see on Pinterest. It’s way too easy for me to subsist off of things that provide more instantaneous gratification, the stuff that “tastes better” only because I’m addicted to it. So often I will seek entertainment instead of seeking God. So often I focus on honing some small talent of mine to obtain praise or admiration from others instead of praying for my friends and family. So many days it is easier to run for miles rather then come to communion with God simply because it is more fun and tangible to me at the time. The scary thing about this is that I can live quite comfortably this way if I have God as my “multivitamin.” I can go to church, read my bible consistently, even perform acts of service and be in leadership positions without giving up my little discrete idols. They are discrete because none of those things are bad in and of themselves, that is what makes them dangerously permissible when they become idols. I can approach God as an intimate friend only when I am emotionally desperate or I have a big question. I can totally take advantage of the fact that he will not refuse to help me even when I ignore him the rest of the time. This creates the illusion godly living that is the most deceptive to myself. Unfortunately, I think this is a common Christian practice.
Donald Miller talked about this idea in his book called Blue Like Jazz, he writes “ I realized in an instant that I desired false gods because Jesus wouldn’t jump through my hoops . . . my faith was about my image and ego, not about practicing spirituality.” In other words we as Christians are susceptible to the tendency to do the bare minimum in order to keep from completely subscribing to worldliness. We desire “false gods”; admiration, beauty, entertainment, and sin because living for Jesus makes absolutely no provision for the flesh, to gratify our weak and selfish desires. So, while we have salvation, living out our faith becomes not about God but about our own self-absorption. Our relationship to him about convenience rather than servitude.
It’s hard for me to confess that there have been so many long periods of time that I have treated God like this.
It is not only hard to obtain the habit of a healthy lifestyle but also hard to maintain it. It requires resources of time and money and it requires sacrifice. Living for God is much the same. He is not here to make us comfortable, or give us good feelings, or provide for our every desire, or even ensure our safety( even though often he graciously does). He is within us to make us into who we were designed to be, reflections of him! Warriors and royalty! The light in darkness, advocate and servant to our brothers and sisters of the world!
My prayer is that God will continue to expose my selfish motives and idols. I want to follow and serve and pray when it is the last thing I feel like doing, when I have to sacrifice things that are actually important, not just my superficial wants. On a related note, I have lately been having trouble getting into worship, at first I pinned it on cookie- cutter lyrics or anything else I could use as a scape goat. Now I realize, I cannot worship him when I am making him something other than what he is. I don’t believe anyone else can either. I cannot worship Convenient God.
Matthew 10:37-39 “Whoever loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Brush fires. 