Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Vitamins and sufficiency

"You want to take two of these, three times a day."
"But... it says you get all the vitamin C you need in just one!"
"Well, yeah, if you want to settle for JUST what your body needs. If you really want to do yourself good, you'll need more."

I'll confess to anyone that God is sufficient. That He is all we need. That He should be enough and if you feel like you need something more, it's a problem with YOU, not with Him. I'll claim those truths till I'm blue in the face.

But.

I have a "settling" mentality. I think that if I had nothing but God, it would be okay. I don't need anything more. In such a way that it's the same as saying, "You just need a little water and bread to survive." True, I suppose, but if you want to be healthy, you need vegetables. You need meat. You need exercise and sunlight.

I've been thinking of God as bread and water, and of friends and relationships and music and art as vegetables, meat, exercise, and sunlight. Not necessarily in that order. ;-) The things that you can live without but aren't necessary to keep you alive. It hit me tonight, though. I don't think that's it at all. What if He IS the bread and water... AND all the rest as well? And what does that make all the rest of the things in life that we so crave but mere reflections of the real sustenance we need for life more abundantly? Besides. If you really had nothing in life but bread and water, your body might not die, but I daresay, your soul would. And which is the more important?

[did I mention I'm having a rough time? it's true. I'm trying though. big road trip this weekend - four days, three job interviews, two meetings at the school, three singles' events, and I've lost track of how many girls I'm meeting with about my housing situation. I'm stressed and anxious and unsettled. please pray for me.]

1 comment:

Rina said...

You know, I've always thought that God created us to need each other. And to need other things. Yes, He is all we need, but He gives us friends and art and music and books to enrich our lives. I think this is all part of Him coming to give us an abundant life. He knows that we need other people, but He wants us to realize that without Him we wouldn't have anything. So, sometimes He takes everything away to show us that He is the most important One in our lives. But, we still need other people to help us. That's just my opinion.