Chips, God, and Satisfaction
By Robert (Bob) W. Jones


I’ve never met a potato chip I didn’t like. Actually, I’ve never met a potato chip that didn’t call my name from the grocery store shelves.

Pringles.

Doritos.

Ruffles.

Lays.


Mark Messier was right about Lays—I can’t eat just one. Once I get the chips home I am forced to eat each and every one of its salty companions. Can you say, “carbohydrate addiction?”

It turns out there are foods that can actually increase your hunger when you consume them.

It seems to me that this phenomenon symbolizes much of the human condition.

  • We drink liquids that dehydrate us.
  • We eat foods that make us hungrier.
  • We buy objects that require us to buy more objects.
  • We make some money, ratchet up our lifestyle in response, and find we need more income to sustain us.

    The harder we work, the more work there is to do. And the harder we play, the more elusive the fun. Ask anyone working in Hollywood special effects, or in extreme sports, or in the sex trade industry, and all will tell you the same thing—Yesterday’s thrill is today’s old news.

    We always need more.

    Jeff Einstein, media advisor to Fortune 500 companies, observes, “We now seem to be passing through a most extraordinary and dangerous time in history. It’s a time when profligate consumption — more media, more food, more sex, more money, more credit, more debt, more licit and illicit drugs of all kinds, more of just about everything except time — all but destroys any sense of propriety and proportion, estranges us from God, and threatens the quality of our lives and communities at every level of society, irrespective of age, race, gender, or social status.”

    There’s a passage in the Old Testament book of Haggai that seems so shockingly current that it’s hard to believe it was written over 2,500 years ago.

“Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much,but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” (Haggai 1:5-6, NIV).

Work that is unproductive, food and drink that don’t fill or quench, money that doesn’t last. The Israelites, to quote a much later poet, can’t get no satisfaction.

God tells them that life is a treadmill of diminishing returns because they have neglected Him.

The only way to enjoy the sort of productive, satisfying existence God intends for them is to put Him first.

Unless God has first place He is likely to have no place in your life.

Putting God first entails:

First in your day. Make your first action a prayer of gratitude and you begin to align your spirit with the eternal.

First in your week. Make Sunday a time to Sabbath, worship, rest and you’ll find you have more capacity for the next six days.

First in your finances. God asks for a tenth of all you earn as a reminder that He owns it all and you can live better off of 90% than you could off of 100%.

First in your focus. This is what it is to have no other gods before your Creator.
When you put God first you’ll get satisfaction as He increases your hunger for more.

Does God have your first place?

About this Contributor:

Robert (Bob) W. Jones is a recovering perfectionist, who collects Coca-Cola memorabilia and drinks Iced Tea. His office walls are adorned with his sons’ framed football jerseys, and his library shelves, with soul food. He writes to inspire people to be real, grow an authentic faith in Jesus, enjoy healthy relationships and discover their life purpose.
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