This post is an excerpt from my new book Enough for Now: Unpacking God’s Sufficiency. Learn why you may have a broken “wanter.”
When I was growing up, the Frito-Lay commercial that interrupted my favorite television shows told me, “You can’t eat just one.” And it was true—one potato chip was never enough. I always wanted another—and another—and another.
This insatiable desire for more doesn’t stop with salty snacks. I’m convinced that ever since Adam and Eve gave in to an appetite for forbidden fruit and a thirst to be like God, we have been stuck with broken “wanters.” The part of us that hungers and thirsts and desires developed serious defects in the Fall. Now I possess a wanter that can make me crave a slice of decadent chocolate cheesecake even after I’ve had soup, salad, and an enormous platter of chicken marsala. A wanter that can make me long for those adorable red pumps in the shoe store window even though I have twenty-five pairs of shoes in the closet. Our broken wanters prevent us from attaining enough.
In fact, our wanters are so broken, we sometimes we have difficulty in discerning our true desires. Because of widespread damaged wanters, a new profession has sprung up. For only $300 an hour you can hire a wantologist—someone who will help you distinguish what you really want from what you only think you want. For instance, you might go to a wantology session with a wish for a promotion at work and leave with the realization that what you really want is to quit your job. Because of our broken wanters, we don’t know what will actually satisfy our souls. So, we continually search for the next bauble, the next promotion, the next relationship that promises happiness.
Even more serious, our broken wanters compel us to yearn for wrong things. Our damaged desire factories make us crave Rocky Road ice cream instead of broccoli. Sleep on Sunday mornings seems more appealing than worshipping with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Because of our sinful natures, we don’t gravitate toward the wholesome or the virtuous. We continually want more than what God has deemed good.
On our own, we are incapable of achieving enough.
Our heavenly Father must be saddened when we try to meet our needs with our own power. Perhaps He shakes His head when we strive and struggle to obtain the bigger house or the more important job. Satan continually attempts to get us to view God as a miser who reluctantly gives out good things. Or to believe we need to work extra hard to earn them. God wants us to view Him, not as the Big Bad Guy in the sky holding out on us, but as the God of sufficiency.
God makes us capable of longing so we come to Him to fill those longings. He makes us yearn for enough so we learn to trust Him for all we need and desire. Jesus said, “But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!” (Luke 12:28). He reproaches our puny faith. But He also invites us to have confidence in the Father who even dresses transitory grass in beautiful colors and feeds tiny, insignificant birds.
The solution to our broken wanters is running to the God of sufficiency.
Next step: Take a moment to write down some of your desires–big and small. Then meet with God and tell Him about these longings. Allow Him to satisfy them in His way and His time.
This post is an excerpt from my new book Enough for Now: Unpacking God’s Sufficiency. Reprinted with permission from Concordia Publishing House.
Check out my brand new book Enough for Now: Unpacking God’s Sufficiency!
A study of the parable of the rich fool, it will help you discover:
- enough money
- enough stuff
- enough food
- enough relationships
- enough time
- enough of me
You can find out more about it here. And order it here and here!