Hungry

I looked at the bathroom scales. Or maybe they looked at me first, scaley and seductive. Why not? They whispered. You can just check to make sure you’re in a healthy range. Otherwise you might keep worrying about it. And then you can go away and forget about it. You’re past that whole problem of finding your worth based on your weight. I gave in. The number was in the general range I said I would be satisfied with, and so I intended to leave it there, happy. Soon, though, the nagging started again.

Remember a few weeks back when you weighed three pounds less? You looked and felt a lot better then. You shouldn’t just accept this weight when you know you can lose three pounds.

Alright, I said. I’ll try to eat less, like I was doing three weeks ago. I had been dieting before a friend’s wedding, and kept telling myself that it didn’t matter if I felt hungry all the time, because I’d eat when it was over. Of course that hadn’t kept me from always thinking about food.

Must control my appetite. Not eat every time I think I’m hungry. Then I can lose three pounds and feel attractive and happy again. Bother, I’m hungry already.

“You fill the hungry with good things,” I read. But you also give us hunger. And expect us to exercise self-control. Sometimes I feel like I’m competing with you God, to see which will win out—my hunger (which you sent), or my self-control (MINE). But you’re God, which doesn’t seem fair. You’re in control of the whole universe, can’t I even have control of my own body? By the way, that wasn’t a very funny trick you pulled. That was my muscle. So now I can’t go running. And you know I like to run. It makes me feel so—in control. I bet you did it on purpose.

And then I pray, which means agreeing with God that He is in fact God. And I’m not.

“I urge you therefore, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.” Offering up control, even of our bodies. Asking to be controlled by the Spirit, who gives self-control, but only as fruit (not fertilizer, as my dad used to say). Relinquishing my desire to exercise control over my life, which always leads to pride or despair, or both. Recognizing that all things are from Him, and through Him, and to Him. How desperately I need the True Food and True Drink.

He can only fill my mouth when I open it.