Sweet Tooth

If you know me very well, you know I have quite the sweet tooth. I love chocolate, cake, cookies, key lime pie, candy, and ice cream. I can pretty much pinpoint the "birth" of my sweet tooth to being roughly 3 or 4 years old. Although my memories of my dad are fleeting and minimal at times, this is one that is extremely vivid. When I was little, I would "sneak" out of bed and find my dad in the family room with the Braves game on and a bowl of Breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream. Oh, and the ice cream was held in the one and only bowl that said, "Bob's ice cream bowl." It was bigger than your average bowl and could therefore hold a lot more of that sacred ice cream. Side note about the ice cream: my family doesn't like Breyer's ice cream, but we eat their mint chocolate chip. It's white; we don't eat the green kind. When I was in Chattanooga when little Jacob was born, the day before Jackie went in labor she asked Andrew to get her mint chocolate chip and at the same time we both specified that it had to be Breyer's. I digress. My dad would give me a bite of his ice cream and then he would take a bite, etc. And my sweet tooth was born. 

Throughout high school I was always dancing, so having such a sweet tooth wasn't that big of a deal because I was able to maintain a nice physique. Well, let's be honest, I am far from that dancer body now. I've recently felt convicted about how I've been treating my body. God tells us our bodies are temples and sacred, and I was not treating it accordingly. Hence, I'm now on a diet and exercising to try to get that body back. But what is killing me right now? My dang sweet tooth. I just can't seem to stop eating sweets. I mean I can resist them but my sweet tooth got me to thinking...

Why don't I have a sweet tooth for the Lord?

At times I do, but if I'm honest I have to tell you that I haven't been good about quiet time since probably November. I come back from church and SAO events on fire for Him. But when it's just me and I could either spend 15 minutes with God or on Facebook, I usually choose Facebook. And that's bad. Really bad. When I was in the depths of my depression, I clung to that quiet time. It was what got me through the day: at the end of this day, I will get to spend time just me and God. But then things got better and I came out of this depression and my quiet times got fewer and farther between. 

Living without God is like living without chocolate, or cake, or candy. And I LOVE those things. And I love God. But I'm really good at resisting Him or neglecting Him. And if you're all honest, I'm sure you are too. And, just like sugar, the more you get of God, the more you want of Him. I want God to be my mint chocolate chip ice cream-nothing will satisfy that sweet tooth except for that specific brand, and nothing will satisfy my spiritual sweet tooth except for undivided time with the Lord.

So I ask you, please help me strengthen my sweet tooth for the Lord, and I'll try to do that for you as well.

Smile, God loves you!