I guess my top two desserts would be chocolate and ice cream. In my opinion they should be the largest requirements in our daily food guide pyramid! Desserts of all kinds appeal to me on so many levels, and when I imagine them it’s like I can actually taste them too! Some desserts bring back warm, comforting memories like rice pudding, apple placinta, pizzellas, angel wings and my grandma’s donuts.
The problem is, you can’t live just eating dessert, or be healthy eating too many. Our bodies are meant to be sustained through a majority of healthy foods. (L sigh!) Thinking of dollops of real whip cream atop soft ice cream (covered in hard shell chocolate) resting on a rich brownie (drooling now…) caused me to consider… no, not my expanding waist line, but our society’s attitude toward the Word of God. How could that be? Just bear with me.
It seems like we don’t want to hear the stuff that’s healthy for us anymore, we just want the fluffy stuff. You know, the stuff we enjoy best such as: God loves you, God wants to bless you, you can have all your desires here and now, it’s ok if you sin because you are already saved as opposed to those ‘nasty veggies’ such as God requires more of believers (Lk. 12:48), many blessings are conditional (Dt. 11:26+), you are promised persecution and struggles (John 15:20; 16:33), and not everyone who says “Lord” and serves will go to Heaven
(Mt. 7:21+). These are things we don’t like to hear.
Then there are the meatier things that require us to chew on them a while to understand. We actually have to cut them up (rightly dividing the Truth- 2Tm. 2:15) before we start eating. Some require more chewing than others (meditate on it- Jos. 1:8), but they all entail more than just a couple chews and a swallow: holiness, obedience, salvation, mercy, agape love, servanthood, completely loving God and much more. What, so much effort? Isn’t it easier if someone just bottle feeds us or spoon feeds us mush?
Well, glad you ask. Yes it is easier, but not healthier. We are supposed to grow up, to stop being babies relying on someone else feeding us (1Cor. 3:1+). Eventually, milk is not enough for growth of a strong, healthy baby and other foods need to be introduced for proper development. So also, we need to dig in with our own efforts and hands to consume the meat of the Word. Proper food makes for strong bodies. Dessert is delicious, but real Bread and meat sustain for the long term.