Wendy Speake is a dear longtime friend who knows the ache of the hungry heart, knows what it’s like to reach for everything but the One Thing. And she’s learned that letting go of what doesn’t satisfy makes room for the One who does. Today, I’m honored to make space here for my friend Wendy to share what she’s learned about the way from fasting to feasting, from striving to satisfied. It’s a joy to welcome Wendy to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Wendy Speake
“When we run to anything other than Christ to meet our deepest needs, that thing we grab hold of can take hold of us. Before too long, that thing can become a stronghold in our lives, holding us back from experiencing the Lord’s strong hold.“
It’s the start of another year and I’m considering where it all started—this perpetual pursuit of something to fill me up and make me feel happy and whole.
My need to manually trip that pleasure sensor when I’m not pleased began years ago.
Back when I was a child, I turned to sugar.
When life felt bitter, I reached for something sweet; when life felt empty, I longed for something to fill my belly as well as my after school hours. With a key dangling from a rainbow shoestring around my neck, coming home to an empty house, I thought candy might do the trick, fill that void, still the hunger. And it did, until it didn’t.
But how was I to know then what it’s taken me half a century to learn? When we run to anything other than Christ to meet our deepest needs, that thing we grab hold of can take hold of us. Before too long, that thing can become a stronghold in our lives, holding us back from experiencing the Lord’s strong hold.
As a latchkey kid with a lonely heart and sweet tooth, I lived for Friday afternoons when I’d receive my weekly allowance of two dollars. Immediately, I’d hop on my little pink bike with the white wicker basket and pedal my way to the corner store. Two dollars could fill that basket with Cherry Bombs, Lemon Drops, sour apple Jolly Ranchers, and Red Vines.
Walking into the corner store each week, with the bell over the door announcing my arrival, was a happy ritual for me. Just thinking about it now brings the scents and sounds to life again. I can even feel the thin, soft crinkle of the brown paper bag that the elderly Japanese man who owned the store put my candy into. Stepping out into the bright afternoon sunlight, I’d pop the first sweet treat in my mouth and navigate the cracked sidewalk back home again.
“He doesn’t convict us in order to condemn us, but in His kindness He invites us to consider what else we might be turning to instead of turning our hearts to Him. “
On the afternoons when I didn’t have a nickel to my name, I’d come home from school and scour the back of the refrigerator where my mom often hid the half-emptied tub of Betty Crocker’s vanilla frosting. As I sat watching Little House on the Prairie, one spoonful from the tub would turn to two, then three, then four, until the tub was empty.
My parents weren’t home because they were working. I’m not blaming them for my sugar addiction. There are plenty of kids who learned to stash candy in the bottom drawer of their desks, under lined paper and a collection of heart-shaped erasers, with Mom and Dad just down the hall. I’m just sharing these details as an invitation for you to consider the details of your story. We all have a story with a hundred chapters and counting.
Sometimes, when I sense God gently convicting me of a bad habit that I’ve gotten myself into (and He often does that at the start of a new year), I flip the pages of my memory back to those growing up years and consider how I got where I am today.
Perhaps you’re willing to do the same with me?
This isn’t just for those of us who took our hurts and holes to sweet treats during our growing up years.
Maybe you started to turn to the sugar of social media during a lonely season with young children; or online shopping and movie streaming to fill your empty evenings in an empty house; or maybe you numb your stress and sadness with a nightly glass of wine.
It all seems harmless at first, but I’ve noticed over the years how the food I eat and the online orders I place can take first place in my life if I’m not careful. What started as something harmless can harm me in the end.
“Nothing that we cram into the hurts and holes of our lives will ever work to make us whole or holy. “
A.W. Tozer once wrote, “Whatever keeps me from my Bible is my enemy, however harmless it may appear to be.” That quote once seemed a little over-the-top to me, but not anymore. With half a century of loving Jesus under my belt, I am getting more comfortable with God’s gentle conviction. I know that it is only His kindness that invites me to consider anything and everything I am turning to in lieu of turning to Him. I think of His gracious invitation, “Come to Me, when you are weary and carrying a heavy load, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).
He doesn’t convict us in order to condemn us, but in His kindness He invites us to consider what else we might be turning to instead of turning our hearts to Him.
How many days have I been too busy to seek the Lord in His Word, to taste and see how sweet and satisfying He is?
When I was a child I didn’t think about sugar causing any spiritual problems in my life. Physical issues like a rounder body and fuller face and maybe an extra cavity or two, maybe, but I didn’t see that I could end up spiritually malnourished. All I knew, subconsciously, was that I could fill the hours and lonely void with something sweet. But I’m not a child anymore. And neither are you.
Nothing that we cram into the hurts and holes of our lives will ever work to make us whole or holy.
Perhaps, like me, you have loved your coping mechanisms—but you’re finally ready to love God more. While sugar has felt like a faithful friend, and the nightly glass of wine seems harmless enough, and your online friends seem fine and faithful too, it’s time to forge a deeper friendship with our most-faithful God.
We’ve been running to the wrong things for far too long. Hopping on our figurative bicycles and pedaling our way to pleasure. But all the alcohol drinking, social media scrolling, TV watching, online shopping, coffee consuming, sugar snacking attempts to numb can’t nourish us.
“Only Christ has the power to save and to sanctify, to bring rest and restoration to our lives.“
Only Christ has the power to save and to sanctify, to bring rest and restoration to our lives.
Here at the start of another year, will you consider where it started and how it’s going? What is it that you turned to in the past, and what are you turning to now, instead of turning to God?
Then ask yourself this simple question: Would you be willing to lay it down for 40 days that you might turn to the Lord with an increased appetite for Him?
He alone can take your hurts and holes and make you whole—and holy.
Wendy Speake is author of The 40-Day Sugar Fast as well as The 40-Day Social Media Fast and The 40-Day Feast. She hosts an annual online sugar fast every January—find out more at 40daysugarfast.com.
The question Wendy dares you to ask is: Would you give up sugar to experience the sweet presence of God in your life? Many of us think that if our bodies become healthier, then we’ll be healthier. But a healthy body doesn’t do us a lot of good if we are spiritually malnourished.
If you run to sugar for comfort or reward, eat mindlessly or out of boredom, feel physically and spiritually lethargic, or struggle with self-control, The 40-Day Sugar Fast will help you discover not only freedom from your cravings but an entirely new appetite for the good things God has for you. It’s a process that begins with us giving Jesus our sugar and ends with Jesus giving us more of Himself—the only thing that can ever truly satisfy our soul’s deep hunger.
{Our humble thanks to Baker Books for their partnership in today’s devotional.}
