"Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him..."
(Matthew 3)
Vulnerable. Needy. Unfulfilled. Lacking in something. Desperate. Incomplete. Tired.
And then the tempter makes its move. When we are at our wit's end, or simply not at our strongest.
I've experienced a taste of this over the past few months. Without going into details, I can attest to this all, and I bet you can too. Satan would love nothing more than to steal, kill, and destroy or joy and our love for Christ. He numbs it down and makes it not so glorious. He makes us feel like our lives are sub-par, as if we're just like everybody else in the world. But we're not. We are created by the Father and Creator of all things to be children of the Living and Active God Almighty, who actually gave himself in the form of Jesus to be killed a strong death for the very sin that had once separated us from him because he wanted us SO badly. Who would do that? I mean really... who!?! Our society doesn't work that way, so it doesn't make sense to us. Or at least it doesn't make sense to me. But I sure want to believe it to be true.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)
But we get hungry, and we forget about all of this. Hungry for more, for better, to be satisfied, to be different. Hunger is confusing.
A few weeks ago I was trying to do the "paleo" diet (no grains, no dairy, no artificialities), and I realized that the diet itself was perfectly easy to follow-- but I couldn't let myself get to the point of hunger without being able to see my paleo food in sight, because otherwise I became irrational. I wanted to grab a piece of hearty toast, or a slice of cake, or yogurt or anything that was right in front of me, just to "take the edge off". Of course none of those things are inherently bad at all.. they're still healthy! But they weren't what I needed then, because I had made a decision to not eat those things at that time. Hunger does that to you though. It makes you want to drop all of your rules and fences. You just want to hurry up and take the edge away from your hunger, even if that means cheating a little bit.
When I read Matthew 3 about Jesus being tempted by Satan, though, I feel encouraged. He was hungry and vulnerable, but he didn't give in. He was tempted with instant gratification, immortality, and ultimate power. Each time the tempter put out the bait for Jesus, Jesus would come back at him with Scripture. He didn't even try to make up excuses of why it's maybe not the best idea because of dot dot dot. He just throws Scripture in the face of temptation, because he knows that it speaks the loudest and is the truest of all.
I'm totally imperfect at all of this, but I'm so thankful that my eyes have been opened to some sort of insight into what's going on behind closed doors when I'm feeling tempted into any wrong-doings.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Amen.
