88 Ounces and Substitutes
It was not too long ago that I saw a construction site just around the corner from our office proclaiming it was the future home of a 7-Eleven. Oh, thank heaven indeed.
You see, I have what some people would call an addiction to the blessed nectar of Diet Coke, so a 7-Eleven sitting around the corner with its veritable buffet of Big Gulps suits me just fine. Now it was not until just a couple years ago that I actually drank anything with carbonation or indulged in the supposed cancer-causing artificial sugar-y goodness. Those days seem to be long gone as it is normative to have a can or two as I work away in the office. I guess 12 ounces or so four times a week is not that bad, bet every so often having that 7-Eleven around the corner gets out of hand.
Out of hand because three out of the five Providence staffers are Diet Coke aficionados which means it is not rare to get a phone call from a staff member saying, “Want anything from 7 Eleven?” My normal response is, “I will take the usual.” And here is where the addiction comes in, “the usual” is a 44 ounce Super Big Gulp. Thus, on a day like this past Monday if “the usual” shows up on my desk twice in one day, I drink no less than 88 ounces of the righteous and sweet liquid.
My purpose for drinking such large amounts of the fake version of The Real Thing actually has nothing to do with thirst, rather it has everything to do with hunger. It is on pretty rare occasions that I eat lunch while at the office, so Diet Coke serves to trick my stomach into thinking it is full, maybe it is because of the airy qualities of carbonation or just the sweet taste – who knows. Call it suppressing the appetite, satiating hunger, or just a demented diet (one that I would never recommend); the fact is that I am substituting drink for food. In place of more, I am taking less.
As the Spirit was doing the normal work of conviction within my heart, I came to realize how often the Christian substitutes less for more. For example, how much more time do we spend reading books about the Bible than reading the Word itself? Is our mind more committed to the memory of sports statistics than Scripture verses? Are the songs we sing ones that are formed by the Word of God or are we singing cheap contemporary phrases about God formed by pop culture?
I guess the real question is: Is the Word alone sufficient for our life or do we need a substitute?
So here’s to the sufficiency of Scripture, may we taste and see that the Lord is good, and may we know that substitutes cannot satisfy!
. . . I think I am going to bring my lunch tomorrow.
