“Come with us! This is a fantastic deal!” Several years ago, our friends were trying to persuade my husband and me to join them on a week-long cruise up the west coast of Canada to Alaska, USA. In the middle of May, the cruise line was trying to fill up spaces in this shoulder season. Quickly making up our minds, we also signed up, at a discount even greater than our friends received.

This holiday, we soon found out, was much different than other trips that we’d been on. We were used to walking, sightseeing, and — on our winter holidays in the warm climates of southern USA — working on various projects such as construction, painting, kitchen prep, landscaping, and whatever else that our hosts in the Servants on Wheels Ever Ready (SOWER) ministry wanted us to do.

We weren’t used to the decadent lifestyle of sitting reading a book, eating, watching for whales, eating, chatting with strangers, and eating again. A cold wind nixed the idea of playing tennis on the deck. I found myself looking forward to mealtimes with their fabulous buffets, not only at one location on board, but at several. Such a choice of foods! I tried to be wise with my selections, picking items that I seldom had at home — healthy ones, like salmon, my favorite. What a variety of salads and vegetables! Desserts were hard to resist. I’ll just have a couple of these tiny cakes. They look pretty light, I thought to myself. The breakfast buffet tempted me with far more food than I usually ate in the morning. Using the stairs between decks instead of the elevator was a good idea, but it didn’t really burn off too many calories. Soon, we were feeling very stuffed, and the thought of another meal was not as exciting as it first was.

We discovered that in order to enjoy our food, we had to be hungry. We couldn’t enjoy it when we were still stuffed from the last meal.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6  NIV)

“Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.” (1 John 2:15-16 NLT)

We have to be truly hungry for the things of God before He can fill us. God designed us with a longing in the soul which can be satisfied only by Him, but if we’re too stuffed with the concerns and pastimes of this world, there is no room for Him. To enjoy the love of the Father, we must give up our own agenda and truly desire that which brings lasting fulfillment. Let’s not be stuffed with the things of this world, at the expense of being satisfied by the Lord.

Prayer: Help us, Lord, not to be so full of the things of this world that You are unable to fill us with all the blessings that You want to give us. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Copyright © 2022, by Alice Burnett <terrencera.burnett@gmail.com> , first published on the PresbyCan Daily Devotional presbycan.ca .
Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

Reprinted from PresbyCan with author’s permission