addendum, day sixteen

Addendum, day sixteen

So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the LORD and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away. (1 Samuel 21:6)

Tonight I felt the presence of real lust. It was the strangest feeling I believe I have ever had. I lusted after a slice of sourdough bread with butter that had been toasted in the oven. It made me feel both pathetic and stupid.

Last night when I fixed dinner for Ella, I made a small sausage marinara over spaghetti. With it I made her a piece of cheese toast. That was pretty bad since cheese toast is one of my favorite things to eat. But I made it through alright.

But tonight, I made her one of my all-time favorites: sirloin tips with peppers and onions over rice. I love that. I still remember eating that for the first time. It was at a steak house, I believe Sizzler and probably thirty years ago, was a tremendously inexpensive item and was wonderful. I have always enjoyed it.

But, even though that was great looking, it was the single piece of bread she held casually in her hand that caught me. And the feeling was akin to lust.

I know that it was illogical, but at the same time, Christianity is illogical. God, who you cannot see, says, through a book you take as real, give up everything and let me remake your life. Your first thought is wait a minute. That is dumb. Give my life over to an unseen force?

But you do and he changes you.

Then you are living along and doing pretty well and overcoming all of the temptations of life like a real holy man and all of a sudden, a small thing catches your eye. It is something you looked at a hundred times, but now it catches your eye. And it grabs your eye. And it grabs your desires. And holds them.

A small thing like a piece of bread in the overall scheme of things is pretty small. But that crust of bread to people who are starving represents something more than a dinner garnish. It represents food and life.

I read once of a group that had brought in a homeful of starving orphans. They fed them and clothed them and gave them a place to sleep. But on the first night, the children didn’t want to leave the living area. As it turned out, they were afraid that when they woke up the next morning, everything would all be gone and they wanted to hold on to it as hard as they could.

The ones who had brought them in couldn’t figure out what to do. All of their reassurances fell on deaf ears. The children were afraid that they would have no more of the food.

One man had an idea. He gave each of the children a slice of bread and told them that if they woke up hungry during the night, that they were not to eat the bread, to just hold it. If they woke up hungry, they were to come into the kitchen and they would be given something to eat. But just hold the bread in their hands. Sleep with it. This way, in the morning, if all else was gone, they would still have that slice of bread.

And the children were satisfied. At least in the morning they had a slice of bread.

Looking at that slice of bread when I haven’t eaten in sixteen days was almost a visceral experience. And I realized how powerful something so simple can be when you are hungry.

But – and here is the rub as somebody Shakespearean said – I want God more than I want that slice of bread. Unlike those children I have a refrigerator and two freezers full of food and a who loaf (minus the heel) of sourdough bread in the top freezer.

I can wait. I want to hear the Lord.

But man, it looked good.