“Why
spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest
of fare.”
Isaiah
55:2
When my oldest son, Luke, was just two years old, we took
him to a toy store and let him pick out a small toy. Thinking he might be overwhelmed with choices, we led him to
miniature tractors, a dump truck, several colorful dinosaurs, and some balls,
but we were amazed when he went straight for the plastic food. After he had picked out a package that
contained two tiny pieces of fake bread, some rubber meat that resembled
bologna, a piece of flimsy yellow plastic cheese, and a minute bottle of
pretend mustard, we went to the register, paid for the item, and got in the car
to leave. Luke was impatient as we ripped open the plastic packaging and gave
him his new toys; and as we pulled out of the parking lot, we heard a little
voice from the back seat declaring, “This not good!” As I looked back in surprise to his surly declaration, I saw
that he had put all of the sandwich pieces together and was trying to eat
them—to no avail. We now knew the
real reason for his unique toy selection that day.
Luke was hungry—thus the reason he picked the toy that
looked like food—and only real food would satisfy the craving he had for
nourishment. Aren’t we like that
too? The psalmist says in Psalm
107:9, “[God] satisfies the hungry with good things…” but we go about our days
feasting on popular culture, fads, social media, and other people’s
opinions. We hungrily ingest unwholesome images, inappropriate entertainment, and irreverent advertisements without considering what they are doing to our minds and spirits. Jonathan Edwards, the
famous Puritan Preacher used to pray that God might “stamp eternity on [his] eyeballs”
so that he could focus on eternal things, not temporary distractions (and I’ll
bet you that Pastor Edwards had a life a tad less distracting than ours).
We need to hunger to see a God that is so glorious that He
transforms our lives. We must dine
on the Truth of His word and the privilege of His presence. We can ‘taste and see that the Lord is
good’ (Ps 34:8) by turning our eyes from worthless things and onto He who is
Worthy. We have contented ourselves with the “fake food” that our society says
will fill us when have a feast of God’s goodness available for the taking. He invites us to “delight in the
richest of fare”.
God gives real food—nourishment for our souls—and Living
Water that never runs dry. And when
we begin to understand that only He can meet our deepest needs, we finally say “This not good!” to all that the world offers. As we look toward Easter this
week, let’s yearn for Jesus by focusing our imaginations upon Him, His death,
and His glorious resurrection. No longer will we dine on cheap imitations but
on the true Bread of Life, Jesus Christ.
“How
sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”
Psalm
119:103