A few weeks ago our family joined another family in purchasing half a cow and half a pig. At this moment I have two freezers full of meat that I can not eat. Tonight I began to think about how tasty a steak would be for dinner. First I realized that the grilled piece of meat I was visualizing was just a symbol for all that God is doing in me right now and then I came across this verse.
Philippians 3:18-20 CEB
As I have told you many times and now say with deep sadness, many people live as enemies of the cross. Their lives end with destruction. THEIR GOD IS THEIR STOMACH, and they take pride in their disgrace because their thoughts focus on earthly things. Our citizenship is in heaven. We look forward to a savior that comes from there—the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ummm….. I don’t particularly like that part about lives ending with destruction being linked to “THEIR GOD IS THEIR STOMACH”. Before I release my steak fantasies, I need to document their symbolism in today’s journey through fasting, prayer and revelation (revvies).
As I stood in the kitchen preparing to eat a bowl of purple soup that my friend Julie promised would be good I got one of those little cartoon bubbles over my head. I’m sure if you were standing there you could have actually seen it. Inside the bubble were two raw ribeyes that were roughly the same size. One was just a big slab of bone and beautiful red meat. The other had big chunks of white fat all the way around it. In my mind, I chose the one with the least amount of fat. Don’t get me wrong. I love me some crispy grilled fat on the edge of my steak. But if choosing between two steaks that are the same size, I’m going to take the one that will give me the most meat. Why? When placed on a fire the fat will melt away and the meat will not. I like meat. Therefore, I chose the steak that would yield the greatest amount of meat when placed on the fire.
This brings me to the fat God is trimming from my life today. Today I grasped that every single thing in my life that is not 100% aligned with what I was put on this planet for, is fat. I’m tired of all the things in my life that melt away and get charred when I walk through the fire. This realization has led to some decisions that have been difficult to make, but those decisions have left me and my dear hubby with total peace.
There are really only three things in this world that bring me total fulfillment: 1) Loving my husband and having him love me in return. 2) Seeing the fruits of my parenting efforts reap a harvest in my children. 3) Writing.
Now. If I had been given a third option of a Kobe steak that is well-marbled with the fat blended so finely with the grain of the meat that it would be impossible to remove, I would have taken option number 3. I feel like I need to add that last bit of information because my life would be quite void without friends, extended family, our church, and my many hobbies. But when those things become priorities, they become the kind of fat that needs to be trimmed.
For those of you fasting with me, I do hope that you’ve thoroughly enjoyed my steak story. 😉
Tonight I will lay my head on my pillow thanking God that I am free to choose whether or not I want to keep those things in my life that are not aligned with His will or keep them and live a life that is full of good-purposes, just not His purposes. He is indeed pretty great!
Lux, Libertas 