MY DOUGHNUT DEBACLE

by Dee Wieninger

I can’t even remember the last time I had a doughnut, and I was craving them big time all day yesterday. So, I jumped on my grocery app and ordered them for parking lot pick-up and my son picked them up for me on his way home from work. I ate two immediately enjoying just about every morsel, although, for a moment, I thought to myself they didn’t quite taste as wonderful as I remembered.

I sit here this morning, the doughnuts once again beckoning to me, saying, “Wouldn’t we taste good with that hot cup of coffee”? I read God’s Word and strive to ignore their pleas, praying and pleading with God to take away this desire, asking forgiveness at even pondering over these diabetic’s poison and for allowing them in my house. 

In my praying, pleading and reading to ward off this temptation I found myself with a paper plate in hand and two different delectable treats heading back to my coffee. I didn’t even wait until they had been totally consumed before I was on “The Desiring God” website searching under, “My Enemy is Myself”. I found an article called,* “How to Fight When You Fail” and tears ran down my face as I read and chewed.

David Sunday states in his article; * “How to Fight When You Fail”, “So, what if after you’ve sinned you didn’t grovel for a week, but instead ran immediately to the Savior who “came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15)?” I did exactly that! I was still chewing when I cried out to the Lord as I knew that eating these types of delectables was a sin…FOR ME! You might enjoy a couple donuts and never consider them as being sinful, but I knew this desire was sin for me. I knew they would mess with my blood sugar. “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” James 4:17 ESV Yet, I saw that they were good…“and I took”. So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes…she took…Genesis 3:6 ESV. That battle still rages on.

As I consistently pray over and struggle at managing my diabetes, my grandson and I had just shared thoughts the day before on a Christian’s attitude toward sin and he reminded me that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we need to care for it. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV.

Staying on a carb free, sugar free diet for a lifetime is so stink’n difficult. I tried to justify that a doughnut or four, twice a year wasn’t so terrible. But partaking of this sort of poison in my body at any time thwarts all the efforts in which I had succeeded all the months before. And frankly, it’s not the eating that was the real sin, it was ignoring or quenching the Holy Spirit’s efforts to provide me an out, and having it my own way. That was the revealing truth of my faith and commitment to our Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or the lack thereof. “Do not quench the Spirit.”  1 Thessalonians 5:19 ESV 

Pastor Sunday goes on to write; “When you fail, fall on him. He won’t resent your repeated returns to his throne of mercy. He’s not sighing or sulking when he sees you trembling at his feet. He delights to show mercy. As Richard Sibbes writes, “He is more ready . . . to forgive than you to sin; as there is a continual spring of wickedness in you, so there is a greater spring of mercy in God.”

Our God is so so good! I really want to be more obedient in my food choices, but when I fail, and I will, our amazing God’s mercy and grace will always be there to catch me, not because of anything I do, but because of Jesus Christ’s loving sacrifice which covers me.

Used by permission

*How to Fight When You Fail- Article by David Sunday Pastor, St. Charles, Illinois https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-to-fight-when-you-fail Micah shows us that even at our very worst, there remains a God in heaven who will not reject repentant sinners. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. (Micah 7:8)