An Insatiable Desire

He just had to have it.
I heard him lay out his argument in the next checkout line.
He wanted some sort of candy that was shrewdly placed right at eye level.
Some sort of something that was a “must have” in his mind.

Flashy, colorful, well advertised, and well placed, it just couldn’t be missed.
Put all the conditions together and it becomes a battle of the wills.
A tired, embarrassed mom who at this point just wants to end the discussion.
A young child who seems to intuitively know that protesting loud enough will give him his way.

I secretly hoped that he would not be allowed to get the candy.
But when the arguing stopped and no tears were heard, I knew otherwise.
A battle of the wills, Child: 1 and Mom: 0.
I wanted the outcome to be so different.

I argued with myself that it didn’t matter.
What happened in another checkout line, with another child was no concern of mine.
However, I saw a bigger life picture here.
One that we all have to deal with on a day to day basis.

A battle of the wills.
Our will and God’s will.
We argue and lay out our points and plans.
We protest and think that we know better.

We come face to face with flashy, colorful, well-advertised, and well-placed temptations.
Someone very shrewd has placed them before us.
Someone who knows what buttons to push.
Someone who knows that comparison, envy, jealousy, and discontentment steal our joy.

The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. (John 10:10)

The thief.
The enemy of our souls.
The accuser.
The joy-robber.

Madison Avenue operates on this principle.
They set up their marketing strategies in such a way that you always want more.
They sell their wares in such a way that you are dissatisfied with what you have.
They promote their products using the beautiful people so that you feel shabby and second best.

Lies.
All lies.
It is a marketing technique that we hold onto as truth.
It is not to edify the consumer; it is simply to sell products.

The candy that the little boy wanted was probably full of sugar and artificial ingredients.
It may have looked good but it was not good for him.
It may have been pleasant to the eye but it was unhealthy to the body.
It was so all-consuming that the little boy acted out in a public place to get his way.

In his classic tale, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis deals with this subject.
Edmund, one of the Pevensi children, goes through the wardrobe and enters Narnia.
He meets the evil White Witch who introduces herself to him as the Queen of Narnia.
The White Witch feeds Edmund enchanted Turkish Delight.

The Turkish Delight gives Edmund an insatiable desire for more of the dessert.
The White Witch uses Edmund’s greed and gluttony to convince him to do her bidding.
He is instructed to bring his siblings back to meet her so she can do away with them.
All Edmund can think of is his desire for Turkish Delight; he will do anything to get it.

It doesn’t matter that what we want so badly will make us sick.
We fail to notice that we have become single minded in our focus.
We have blinders on to everything else but what we want.
We like Edmund have an insatiable desire for those things that are not good for us.

Jesus continued: There was a man that had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them. Not long after than, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.” So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. (Luke 15:11-20)

We want what we want when we want it.
The estate the father divided was money he would need to live on as he got older.
That did not matter to the younger son.
His needs, his insatiable desire came first before the needs of anyone else.

However, what he wanted so desperately was not all he thought it would be.
He came to the end of his money and the end of his resources.
He had nowhere else to go but home.
He planned to humbly ask his father for forgiveness.

But while he was along way off, his father spotted him.
This dignified man ran to meet his son.
He ran and threw his arms around him and kissed him.
There was not a hint of embarrassment.

There was no, I told you so.
There was not a hint of satisfaction in his failure.
There was only undignified running towards his son.
The father laid propriety aside and only thought of meeting his son.

The beauty of the story Jesus told is the reaction of the father.
He was waiting for his son.
The father set off at the first glimpse of his son’s silhouette coming over the hill.
All that mattered to the father was restoration.

When I left the store, I saw the little boy and his mother.
He had opened the candy and began eating it.
What he wanted so badly must have tasted terrible to him.
He was spitting it out in her hand as they stood next to the trash can.

There was no, I told you so.
There was just a mother’s hand under the chin of her son.
There he spit out what he thought he couldn’t do without.
She knew better but he had to learn the hard way.

Maybe it was good that he sampled what the world has to offer.
The flashy, colorful, well advertised, and well placed things that call to us.
The things we have to have that prove to be empty and unfulfilling.
The things that steal our joy.

They call to us and make us question the blessings we have from the hand of God.
We need to turn a deaf ear to them.
We need to turn our ear towards the shepherd that calls to His sheep.
We know His voice; we will not follow another.

We may have to spit out what the world has to offer.
It will never satisfy.
God’s hand is under the chin of His child ready to catch the worldly junk we tried to ingest.
God’s hand is there, ready with the only thing that truly satisfies: Himself.