The biggest life pattern I've seen is how I run to food in the midst of...whatever. Whatever emotion it is, you name it, I run to food. It's usually different foods for different moods, but it's still always food. A cheap imitation of what I am really looking for.
See, I think we complicate our lives and reason away our need for God. We run to other things simply out of pride. Because if I run to God instead, I am admitting that I am not the center of my universe and that I just might need help because I am out of control. Gasp.
I am kicking around this idea of writing down all of the painful food moments I have had in my life. All the ways I have used food as a comfort, an escape, a companion, a horrible friend. This list is long and embarrassing. Every day some other moment pops up that reminds me of how I have used food in the past to try and fill that God shaped hole in me. But don't fool yourself, you have that hole too. And I bet there is something that you try to fill it with. Maybe for you it's not food. Maybe it's a guy. Or a job. Or a sport. Or a religion. None of these things replace the relationship with Jesus that we were made for.
So why do we keep doing it?
I wish we would all stop being so tough. I wish we would all climb over these walls we've built. But I know that the reality is that I can't make that change for the whole world, although I will devote my life to trying. I will also commit to running towards the only permanent, loving, eternal person in my life. The person that knows me better than anyone and that will never change, never hurt me, and never leave me.
No one else has claim to that place but Jesus himself.
And to be honest, I could really use some running partners.
-Liz
