Buffet Living

Last week, my wife and I had the fortunate opportunity to spend six days together in Mexico at an all-inclusive resort. It was a wonderful time of reconnecting, recreation and recharging. Each day, several times a day, we would avail ourselves of the seemingly endless supply of food and call it breakfast, lunch 1, lunch 2, dinner 1, dinner 2, you get the point. We wore a little wristband that identified us as guests and entitled us to all we could eat. Each meal was different, some much better than others and they all uniquely satisfied our hunger. Yet several hours later, there we were again, hungry and ready for more. For that time, we indulged ourselves in buffet living and truth be told, there was more of us when we left than when we arrived. :)

While that was a unique experience for us, to experience buffet living at the physical level, each day of our lives we indulge ourselves in a spiritual buffet. Consider the passage I was led to this morning;

Jeremiah 15:16
"When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty."

Each day as I present myself to the Lord, he lays before me a great feast in the form of his holy word. And each day, I help myself to his literally endless supply of wisdom, mercy, grace, compassion, love and insight. Each morsel that I consume brings joy to my heart, knowledge to my mind; they are quite literally my joy and my heart's delight. God's word causes me to take flight from the pain, suffering and disappointment of this world and to rise above indulgent, earthly, physical buffet living. And I am so happy for that!

What grants me access to the spiritual buffet of God's Holy Word is not a wristband and it's not the name of Christian. It is instead the presence of the Holy Spirit living inside me responding to God's Word. Where I myself cannot find joy, The Spirit can. Where I myself cannot find wisdom, The Spirit can. Where I myself cannot find delight, The Spirit can. AND DOES.

The way I read this passage, I do not 'bear his name' as my own but rather, I bear His name on my lips as I prasie and exalt him. You may call me Christian because I follow Christ but I cannot speak the name of the Lord God Almighty. But The Spirit can and does on my behalf.

While that last little paragraph may represent an opportunity for theological debate, my point is this... each of us has a buffet before us, prepared by the Lord God Almighty and we have been invited to feast with The King. We are escorted by The Spirit and through our study we eat of the buffet of the word. By our praise and worship, we bear the name of Lord God Almighty into his presence.

Live the buffet life! Feast and rejoice in his name.

Shalom,
Carl