No Dessert, Please.
“The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, but the stomach of the wicked is in need.” Proverbs 13:25
Has Enough – What’s the difference between “has enough to satisfy” and “eats to the satisfying”? The first translation pushes us in the direction of adequacy (enough to get by). But the second suggests something else. It contains that imagery of a feast where I can eat all that I could want. The Hebrew is literally, “one who eats to the satisfying of his appetite”. The verb is ‘akal. It’s not an Emily Post verb. It covers “devour” and “consume”. It is used of a raging fire and the plague of locust. There’s nothing minimal about this picture. I don’t know about you, but I have a big appetite. It takes a lot to satisfy me. This proverb says that I don’t have to worry. God has plenty. In fact, God has so much that I will end up saying, “No dessert, please. I’m too full.”
Somewhere along the way, Christianity entered the aesthetic life. Maybe it was during those dark ages when the church lived in opulence on the backs of the poor. When golden cathedrals spiraling toward heaven were more important than the hovels from hell the parishioners occupied. We never quite got over that, did we? We still have this uneasy feeling that God is just a bigger Scrooge. He has plenty, but He doles it out slowly. No sense getting too big an appetite. You’re just setting yourself up for frustration.
Of course, there’s something else hidden in this verse (well, maybe not really hidden) that speaks directly to our guilt-laden frustrations. It’s the word for appetite. This proverb has a little Hebrew pun. The word for appetite is naphsho. It comes from nephesh, the word for breath, life and soul. But nephesh is not “soul” like we Greek based Westerners think. It is not the third part of the “body-mind-soul” mythology. Nephesh is the word for the whole panoply of living needs and desires. It covers everything from bodily hunger to spiritual desire, from food to sex to worship. Nephesh is the word for life without disclaimers. And naphsho is the appetite for living. It’s the desire to be fully alive. To be totally satisfied with being here. To know what it means to be completely me.
We’re way past Emily Post now. We’re in the range of gusto. This is life loved long in all of its splendor. Nothing gets past us (“consider the wildflowers of the field”) and nothing is wasted (“to the least of these”). Life is intended to satisfy! God made it that way. But be careful. Before you go buy that Lamborghini, notice who enjoys this full satisfaction of appetites. Ah, yes. The righteous. The ones who live under the hand of their all-providing Father, reflecting His appetites in this world. The mirror images of God’s heart. They will be satisfied.
