Befriending Your Monstersنموونە

Monster #2—More

My mind has been attacked by the Monster of More through the adaptation principle. Solomon says in Proverbs 23:1–3: “When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you have a big appetite. Do not desire the ruler’s delicacies, for they are deceptive food.” 

Why does Solomon think that you should put a knife to your throat? Maybe because Solomon knew that you would get accustomed to the king’s table and no longer appreciate your own. No matter how much you feed your mind with the ruler’s delicacies or life’s bounties, your brain always adapts to wanting more. Just as the serpent twisted the words of God in the garden, we can twist the words of the Monster of More by acknowledging their half-truth. We aren’t full, but we were never meant to be full.

The Monster of More says that what we need is just around the corner or behind the currently inaccessible door. The truth no one wants to say but everyone needs to hear is that in this age we will always have an unsatisfied craving. The Christian story tells us that we are groaning, waiting for redemption (Romans 8:23). If we befriend the Monster of More, we learn that we are cracked and thus will never be full here. And that’s when the saving light comes in, to show us that our life’s beauty is also in its incompleteness.

Gratitude plays a key role in befriending our Monster of More. When receiving something as a gift, you don’t have expectations or demands for what it’s supposed to do. Instead, you appreciate the gift because you didn’t deserve it, you weren’t owed it, and you didn’t work for it.

When we stop demanding relationships, possessions, and honors to fill a void, we turn our greedy grasping-for-more hands into palms-open receptive hands that receive all of life as a gift. 

You weren’t made to be redeemed in this age. You weren’t promised to be full. You weren’t offered a carefree life without obstacles. The Monster of More makes you fully aware of that. But if you can baptize that, the incompleteness becomes a reminder that being full was never something you were promised. So whatever you receive is experienced as an undeserved grace.

What is hardest about hearing that you were not made ‘to be full’ this side of heaven? Ask God to help you recognize undeserved grace when it appears in your life. Thank God for this.