Have you ever gone to Olive Garden and totally stuffed yourself on the breadsticks so by the time your meal arrives you couldn’t eat another bite? Other restaurants bring you chips and salsa or chips with spinach and artichoke dip. They call them appetizers. Are they not more appropriately called deappetizers? Now some of you might respond to me with a lecture on self-control and that I should pace myself by just nibbling on those tempting morsels and of course you would be right. But I can’t just sit there and stare at them for the twenty minutes or so it takes for one’s meal to arrive.
And so it is with so many things on a mental menu. While I want to feed on God’s Word and other materials that will contribute toward a healthy spiritual walk, I become distracted by spiritual deappetizers. Life is filled with an endless array of books, films, television programs and video games. Just like the chips and salsa, they are good. The problem for me is they sate my mind with so many interesting ideas and facts that I find I lose my appetite for Ephesians, Colossians and Luke. When I pick up what should be the main course I am just not hungry.
Three thousand years ago Solomon wrote, “. . . of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” What would he say if he could walk into a Barnes and Noble or pick up a Kindle? Paul told Timothy to study to show himself approved unto God. I doubt if that could have been done on a steady diet of Netflix.
Written by Roger Bothwell on February 20, 2012
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org