Steinbox

The following was written by my good college friend Breeze, a wife, nurse and mother of three. When I read this on her blog, I asked her permission to re-post it here. Enjoy!

Peeps, Big TVs, and the Lust of the Eyes

I don’t like Peeps-those marshmallow chicks that show up this time of year. They have never tasted good to me. Yet every year I see those beautiful bright yellow, and now blue, pink, and green, creations in sugar springing from the store shelves. With their droopy beaks they say “we are sweet, we are soft, we are quintessential Easter and memories of yesteryear!”

Even their dull chocolate eye-specks say “buy me now and your mouth will thank you!” Thankfully, I don’t have to buy them. My mother-in-law comes through with Peeps, chick and bunny variety, in multiple colors. I select one. I take a bite, anticipating the ecstasy. I admit that the softness of fresh ones is somewhat satisfying [aside-my childhood memory is replete with Peeps with a hard outer crust from being exposed in an Easter basket unknown length of time. There are some who like them "stale" I am told. My mother is one of them. She was willing to make the sacrifice to eat the ones the "Easter bunny" left me.] But then squishy artificial color bomb hits my taste buds and I think “why do I do this every year?” Now, I don’t hate them. I usually finish the one I started, but there is minimal enjoyment and certainly not the ecstasy of which I daydreamed. But they look so wonderful! Sometimes I even give in a second time on another day, hoping, hoping, they will somehow have changed and magically meet my ardent expectations.

So what is it with the lust of the eyes that makes it so violent, so very effective, even when we know it is totally false? How can I be so perfectly content with what I have and in a moment be longing for something more? I pretty much hate TV and yet I see an ad in the paper with a family sitting in the living room and on the wall is a HUGE flat screen TV with a lovely picture of a beach and sunset and I think “wow, that’s pretty cool! too bad it’s so expensive.” What!?! I hate TV’s! How on earth do these thoughts even get into my brain!?! Of course it’s a billion dollar industry to not only capture my thoughts but cause me to act on them. Thanks be to God that my general inclinations are against buying anything and years of practice resisting such urges helps me quench such thoughts very rapidly. But I am continually amazed at what gets past my eye gates. I wonder, what else is zipping through and finding a more unguarded target in my soul? Oh LORD God, strengthen me and defend me against the lust of my eyes, for I desire to do Your will and to abide with You forever!

I John 2:15-17 KJV

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Thanks Breeze!