Spoons   (March 3, 2010)

          One of the games I played as a child was a card game in which players had to acquire a spoon to gain a win.  In the center of the table, we placed spoons enough for all but one of the players.  The first player to get four-of-a-kind in his hand would grab a spoon.  That was the cue for others to quickly follow.  Only one player was left without a spoon.  I recall some animated contests for that last spoon!  Good thing it wasn't a fork.  Grab it and grip it, and don't let go.
          Human nature fights loss.  We instinctively want to win!  Life is all about gain, not loss.  Yet paradoxically, my greatest losses have allowed me to receive the greatest gains in my life.  Sometimes my fingers have to be pried open, my props taken, in order that I might seek and find treasure of a different sort.  
          The problem with gain is that it often turns into dependency.  It's all about the spoon.  Gains prop us up.  Then they define us, creating expectation, making us proud.  And the longer we have our props, the more we trust our props will make us happy, even save us. We ignore our heart's overwhelming hunger, which remains unsatisfied even with all our gains.  The spoon is empty.
          God is so gracious.  He allows us to get hungry so that we realize we can't be satisfied with the spoon.  He provides what we really need.  And what we really need is him.

Deuteronomy 8:3, "He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord."
         

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