blueberry muffins ...

So these two blueberry muffins were sitting on my desk when I got in to work today, which is cool, free food is cool. Anyway, they were the packaged kind, the kind that would still be as "fresh" this time next year as they are today (I actually looked for an expiration date and couldn't find one). In any case when i got to work this morning at 8am, I had eaten breakfast already so I wasn't too hungry and they definitely did not look enticing. not only were they unappealing because i wasn't hungry, but also because each muffin, being about half the size of my fist, held 200 calories a piece! That many calories for that little amount of "food" isn't something I want to waste my time on. It's not the idea of the calories that bother me, rather the fact that I know if I ate them then two hours later i would be hungry all over again and have wasted 400 empty calories I'd rather have used elsewhere. BUT now it is 11:45am, lunch time, and as fate would have it, I forgot my lunch today. And those blue berry muffins are starting to look good. Why are they starting to look good? Have they changed, have they become more healthy, are they going to fill me up any longer than originally anticipated, what's different? They have not changed, the change has happened with me. Now i'm a little more hungry, now I know that the muffins are quite possibly my only food source at least until 7pm tonight, and now my guard against unhealthy eating is a little weaker.

The guard is weaker therefore the temptation to give in is stronger. That's how it is in all of life really though isn't it? If I make the conscious decision to be strong in areas that I am weak, because I know that the areas in which I am weak will lead me to do that which is not good for me, then I am good. I am able to maintain because I am prepared and focused. If I am in conscious continuous conversation with God I am much more able to fight off the lies of destruction and entrapment coming from every force that is not Him -- the world with it's standards, people with selfish motives, myself with unrealistic expectations, and any half truth (complete lie) the devil decides to whisper throughout my day. All those things are obviously negative, obviously harmful if given in to, may harm myself, my dreams, my friends, my family, etc. However, when I am guarded, when I am in contact with the One who created all, the guard remains strong and the crappy choices keep looking crappy...unlike the blueberry muffins sitting in front of me right now.