“If you find honey, eat just enough – too much of it, and you will vomit.” (Proverbs 25:16)
This self-control verse doesn’t quite fit into our modern experience of honey. I “find honey” every day when I open my cupboard and see the little bear-shaped bottle on the shelf. But the nation of Israel at the time this was written was practically “flowing with milk and honey.” You were likely to happen upon it along the path now and then.
In our day, the land flows instead with candy and soda, milkshakes and chocolate, high fructose corn syrup and red dye number 7. Every kid with a dollar can buy bag of Snickers or a bucket of Mountain Dew.
And I’d guess it takes a lot more of that stuff to make us vomit than it once did.
More than ever now we need to remember the big idea of this verse: We must not let opportunity decide what we will put in our bodies. The mere availability of lots of wonderful and terrible food doesn’t mean we should actually put all of that food in us.
When there’s more than enough to eat – or watch or play or click on – we have to find the wisdom to say how much is enough for us today.
Think: How do you decide when you’ve had enough of something? How could you do better at that?
Pray: Ask God to give you the wisdom and self-control to know when to stop.
Do: Ask a few people you know who seem to have good self-control how they decide when to say enough is enough.