I want them all--Quiero los dos

"I don't want eight waffles, I want twelve!"
no, this video doesn't perfectly illustrate my point, but it does a little bit, and more importantly it was hilarious and necessary.

On to the real story.

There is a little boy in my sunday school class (well, wednesday, but no matter) who has baffled me repeatedly. Sometimes we offer to reward him with a sucker at the end of the day, but whenever we do, almost inevitably he asks for TWO suckers, instead of just one. He reaches into the bag to choose a flavor, but alas, he cannot choose just one, so he pulls out two favorites, apparently neither of which he can stand to live without. No matter how many times we've gone over it with him, despite his knowing that he can either have one or zero, not two, almost every single time he is unable to make a simple choice and instead has to forego a sucker altogether. Baffling! One simple choice and that sucker would be his, but he wants them both so badly that he would rather have nothing than lose one. Every time it surprises me, and every time I explain it to him over and over, fully expecting him to come to reason and change his mind. But he is in such hysterics he cannot. Hysterics!
For a while I have thought it so crazy, so hard to believe and impossible to understand, until finally it struck me--I'm him.

I want them both; I want it all. I am not content with the gift I didn't deserve in the first place, I want more. Indeed, I'd almost say all or nothing! Yikes. Such a sneaky but dangerous feeling.

Sometimes it's so easy to want what God wants for me, nothing more and nothing less. After all, I KNOW from his promises (and from 20 or so years of experience) that it will be what's best!  But sometimes too the enemy sneaks in, or just my own human nature, to say "hey... what about that other stuff though? Surely it's not bad to want!" But the truth is that even the best stuff to want, if it's not in line with God's plan for me (and right this moment at that--a good thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing), is in danger of taking me down the road of discontentment, and ultimately selfish idolatry. I'm reminded of a short but haunting snippet of the life of a man who presumably had served alongside Paul, "For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me."

I don't want to be so in love with the gift I haven't been given, that I miss out entirely on the ones that I have.


"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" ~Romans 8:32






Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Colossians 3:5

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Ephesians 5:5

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Matthew 16:26


For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Luke 12:34

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4