It’s Okay to Have a Bowl of Cereal Sometimes

Sometimes you need something quick to fill you up, but should you really be relying on a quick fix or should you have something a little more filling? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So tonight's podcast kind of has a funny name and that's okay. The title is It's Okay to Have a Bowl of Cereal sometimes. Any of my close friends and anyone who spent any kind of time with me knows one thing about me. I get hangry. Sometimes I don't even realize that's my issue. I just know I have an attitude. I'm grouchy, I'm irritable, I don't want to be around people, and I'm not really fun to be around. One time one of my best friends and I were going to visit someone and we went to pull out the driveway, and I must have been being a grump because she pulled back in the driveway, sent me upstairs and said, We're not going anywhere until you go have a cheese stick. Other times, when my other best friend and I are traveling, she'll say, Hey, did you eat something this morning before we left? Or did you want to stop and grab something? And I don't even have to ask what's wrong because I know I'm having an attitude and I need something to eat. Now, to combat this in the mornings, I usually pack some yogurt or fruit to take to work, or I make myself breakfast at home. Every once in a while, I forget to pack anything. So then on those occasions, I keep dry cereal in my office for emergencies. No matter the circumstance, hanger is a real thing, and what is hanger but anger due to unresolved hunger? Bitterness is a lot like anger. Bitterness is anger due to unresolved resentment. Let's talk about resentment and how it can fester into bitterness, which in turn can turn physical, emotional, or even spiritual. Resentment is the displeasure you have towards someone or something due to either real or imagined mistreatment, abuse, offense, or other injury. Please note the very important distinction that resentment is usually directed towards a person or thing, and it is not a general attitude. Hebrews 12 15 says, See that no one falls short of the grace of God, and no root of bitterness springs up to cause trouble and defile many. In this we can see that the root of bitterness is also understood to be resentment, and resentment, as I said, can grow and cause harm to not only just you, but everyone around you. I'm gonna take a moment and we're gonna talk about three different people in the Bible and how resentment and bitterness affected their lives. First we're gonna start with the obvious one, the one who changed her very name to mean bitter. Naomi was angry with God. She had gone from being resentful that he made her leave her home during a famine. Her sons marry women from Moab, which was not a godly land, and then she lost not only her husband, but her two sons, and then one of her daughter-in-laws goes back to her homeland. She blamed God for her losses and became heavy with grief. Then she turned her name to Mera, meaning bitter. In Ruth one it says, Don't call me Naomi, call me Mera, she answered, for the Almighty has made me very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi? Since the Lord has opposed me and the Almighty has afflicted me. See, the bitterness comes from a place that believing God does what you want, when you want, how you want, where you want, and why you want. It's believing that God works on our timetable and not on his. God works everything for our good, according to Romans 8.28. He never wastes a hurt, and God doesn't cause the bad things to happen, but he does allow them sometimes because they can be used for his glory. God didn't allow Naomi to go alone. He sent Ruth with her, and Ruth was a faithful woman of God who promised to go with Naomi wherever she went and help her with everything she could, which is why she was out working the land. Ruth began working in the field where she meets Boaz, they marry, they have children, and they become part of the lineage of Christ. Through Ruth's story, Naomi finds her joy, her purpose, and her strength. She had no idea how powerfully God was going to use her to literally change the course of history, and high Naomi remained in the bitterness, it could have changed the direction of that. Naomi found her redemption in her season of bitterness. Jonah was also a man of resentment, and in my mind rightly so. God told Jonah to go preach the gospel of Nineveh, and they would repent and be saved. Now let me tell you a little bit about Nineveh. They were evil people, and it was an evil land. Ninevehes were known for their savagery and idolatry. Jonah was basically of the mindset that Nineveh didn't deserve its chance to repent. They needed to be dealt with for their evil ways. It wasn't fair that they were getting a chance. I think we all kind of know what happened next. Jonah tried to run, was swallowed by a big fish, spent three nights there, and finally met it to Nineveh. He preached the gospel, and guess what happened? The people fell on their faces, repented, and their country was restored back to godliness. God intercepted Jonah in the divide between resenting that he had to go as a prophet to Nineveh and the bitterness about them being delivered. When God stepped in and Jonah did not step into the bitterness that he could have, once he obeyed God, he found resentment also dissipate. Just like Naomi, Jonah's deliverance of resentment literally changed the course of the nation and the course of history. For my last example, before I wrap up, I'm going to talk about someone whose resentment did turn into bitterness, which turned into rage, which turned into action, which led him to being a marked man. If you got them talking about Cain of Cain and Abel, you are correct. A brief recap of the story. Cain was mad because he and Abel offered sacrifices to God. Abel offered his sacrifice with sincerity and a pure heart, the goods and the best of the best on his farm, and Cain brought his offering, the fruit that had fallen to the ground that probably would have been thrown out anyway. God accepted Abel's offering and disregarded Cain's insincere and unhealthy offering. Cain, in his anger, killed Abel. After he killed them, he then went to God and he lied to him and said he didn't know where Abel was. Cain was severely punished, not because of his offering, but because of the bitterness in him and the actions that resulted from it. God cursed Cain to be cast from him and to be marked. He was to wander the earth without God's presence, but marked for anyone who came to him that they could not murder him, or they would be given a sevenfold vengeance for killing him. Cain got married and had a child, but Cain was not a blessed man, and because of his bitterness and rage and his actions thereof, he stayed not a blessed man. So why am I telling you about these people and talking about cereal and hanger and why do they even go together? Bitterness is like the strongest form of hanger. You're so hungry you will consume whatever is put in front of you. Anything good for you, anything bad for you, anything that you see in front of you, you would probably eat when you're hungry. It doesn't matter, you're just so desperate for something to fill you. Resentment is like the beginning stages of hanger. You start to feel that void, but it isn't quite desperate yet, but you know it's time to find something to fill you up before you go any further into the hanger cycle. This time you have an opportunity to look around a little harder and find something worth eating, find something a little healthier and a little better. Sometimes this happens when you're unprepared. That's why it's good to have a plan, a prayer, something to fill you up. Something that is temporary until you can remediate the problem, a temporary fix, if you will. However, the biggest solution is to keep yourself from feeling hangry or feeling empty, and to keep yourself full, right? Read the word, pray, listen to worship and praise, listen to podcasts, go to church, fellowship with believers, and study. Do whatever you need to keep yourself so full of God you don't have room for resentment or bitterness. Resentment is natural, but don't allow it to settle. Without resent settling, bitterness cannot fail you. So it is okay to find yourself a little empty, just like it's okay if I find myself a little hungry some mornings when I forget breakfast. And it's okay to find a temporary coping mechanism, just like it's okay to have a bowl of cereal sometimes, but it is not okay to make that choice every day. It's not a choice to that I should make to eat something unhealthy, because just like we need the meat of the word, we need protein for breakfast. It needs to be the meat that feels fills us. So I just want to take a moment and talk about how it's so important to fill yourself with God, because it sounds really cliche, but when you are so full of the word and you're so full of prayer and worship and praise, bitterness and resentment can't settle. They might come for a minute and they might try to set up shop, but they're not gonna fill you if you're already full of something else and that needs to be the word of God. So I just wanted to leave you with that tonight.