Cravings

The time for the requested prayers of the elders is over. When I craved food before, I would stop and pray. Now, I pray, but there's not the request that I had before. I need to add purposeful prayer to my fasting again in order to fight these cravings. I'm praying and fasting now for a little toddler on our church's bulletin prayer list.

The new verse of the week is from Numbers 11:4. The people that accompanied the Israelites who were not fully Israelite or who loved the Israelite people so much that they were allowed to go with them began to have "intense cravings". Their cravings gnawed at them. Day after day of eating this "Angel Food" (see an earlier post) got monotonous. They began to remember their home foods - meats, fruits, vegetables. They especially craved the meats.

Because of their disgust of this good manna, God became angry with them and killed some of them with fire. Moses had a "talk" with God and God gave him instructions of how to obtain meat for those who were craving it. Although they were getting the meat they wanted, they died because of it and the place that they died was called, "Kilbroth Hattaavah" (meaning "graves of craving") because there they buried those who yielded to craving.

Quite a story, huh? Why is it included in the Bible? I believe it's included for the lessons that can be learned. Here is the lesson I get from that story...

God had given the Israelites and those with them the perfect food. It is, after all, included in Heaven along with the Tree of Life to be consumed by those who spend etertnity there. (Revelation 2:17 - although this could be figurative, but I don't think so). Rejecting it was rejecting God's gift of life.

Today, rejecting good foods straight from the ground, closest food to the hands of God, so to speak, might just be the same thing as rejecting God's gift of life to me. Every bite of life giving food gives just that: life. Every bite of dead food, takes a little bit of life away. And, too much of either of those has its problems, too. The Israelites were only allowed a certain amount of manna each day. Trying to get more got them into more trouble.

Fighting cravings: prayer with purpose and thankfulness to God for His life-giving foods. It has to be easier to deal with cravings the more battles we win.