Is More of a Good Thing Really Better?

I’m writing devotions this week at Everyday With God. We’re taking on the idea of God’s definition of “more” and “better” and chewing on it a bit. This one went live today, and it’s one of my new favorites, so I thought I’d share it here too . . . It’s based on the story of the woman Jesus met at the well in the middle of the day at lunchtime in Samaria. Check out the story in John 4.

I wasn’t sure when I grabbed it off the buffet table that morning at my daughter’s class party. I decided to try.

Sesame-seed-topped feta-cheese-filled Turkish doughiness from Ismael’s mom. She’s from Turkey.

I’d never tasted anything like it. And I would likely never taste anything like it again. So I enjoyed every bite of that unknown deliciousness. Savored the foreign flavor while it was mine to be had. Before it was gone from my life forever.

The party activities began soon after, but there was plenty of Turkish amazingness left for me to eat another.

When I took inventory of my appetite, though, I knew I was full. Still, I could make room for just one more piece of the amazing.

But this was something I needed to conquer.

I could not let the temptation to overeat sneak in and steal the true satisfied that has nothing to do with feta-cheese or Turkish doughiness.

It’s a physical temptation that has become spiritual too. As in, I don’t need more, but I crave the flavor of amazing. I love to fill my gut with awesome. I cannot get enough when something is good.

So I sat there convincing myself I didn’t need more of the Turkish awesomeness. Like a cartoon with a little me on one shoulder, clad in white, halo shining. The devil version of myself on the opposite shoulder trying to justify the one little piece I did not need.

I would have experienced no immediate consequence had I taken another piece. No lightning strike for not heeding God’s wisdom that told me more was not better.

That one portion of His great is way better than two portions of just good.

But it was the principle at stake. The chiseling away, one tiny piece at a time, of the foundation of wisdom concerning my appetite for what is good.

You see, my taste is flawed. My taste for what is excellent. What’s worth chasing after. What’s worth filling myself with. Body, mind, spirit, time.

So often I let the pull of the momentary good pull me away from the focus of what is worthy. What is better. The truly amazing that God wants to give me. Wants me to chow down abundantly.

It’s the real and living water Jesus offered the woman at the well. Better than pretend-intimacy with men and their empty promises. More filling than the satisfaction of knowing she’d landed herself a man with a name.  Longer-lasting than the few nights she shared with each one of them.

She’d been drinking from the wrong well. Kept coming back to the water that did not quench her true thirst.

How often I am that woman. I keep looking for more of what will not satisfy rather than taking the only thing that I will never need more of, whether a piece of Turkish amazing or something else.

The real and living water of Jesus Christ.

Is there something that pretends to be better for you? How do you deal with it when it calls out your name?