Consume With Care

Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

2 Timothy 2:22

Shipwreck victims, adrift on the ocean without water, have died after consuming salt water in desperation. Because salt water contains seven times more salt than the human body can digest, the body begins to demand more water to flush out the salt. So the more salt water one drinks, the thirstier one gets. The body finally succumbs, consumed by its own desires.

Wise is the person who remembers the line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” And wise is the person making his way through this world who remembers the same thing with regard to the lusts and desires of the flesh. Just as the body has a natural desire for water, so the soul has natural desires as well: for intimacy, recognition, or achievement.

But any one of those legitimate desires can lead to spiritual death if too much of the wrong thing is consumed in pursuit of gratification. That’s why Paul told Timothy to “flee also youthful lusts,” and why he told the Roman Christians to “make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:14).

Meeting a legitimate need in an illegitimate way is a good way to be consumed by your own desires.