Have you ever eaten too much? There’s a massive difference between feeling content and satisfied vs uncomfortable and in pain. When you eat just the right amount and you practice self-control you come away thoroughly enjoying your meal. When you overeat, it can ruin the enjoyment of the meal and it makes you feel sick. The thing you were delighting in became the very thing that you don’t want near you.  

Proverbs 25:16 says, “If you find honey, eat just enough – too much of it and you will vomit.”  

When God was taking the Israelites to the Promised Land, He often referred to it as “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Honey represented abundance. God was taking His people to a place where they could enjoy abundance! However, in Deuteronomy 8:11-18 He reminds them to be careful that once they have all the food they can enjoy, the houses of their dreams, plenty of herds and flocks, and their money is multiplying, that they don’t forget Him. The Giver of these gifts.  

Enjoyment of God’s gifts cannot be separated from God. Otherwise, what happens as seen with the Israelites, is that His gifts soon don’t become enough. Because they were never meant to satisfy us, they were meant for enjoyment out of our relationship with God.

We’ll only ever be satisfied in God, not in His gifts. And when we take God out of the picture, overindulge, eating too much honey, His gifts makes us sick. A heart sickness where we’re not satisfied enough and so we search for more, something “better”, something more enticing and the gifts of the world and the devil often seem very enticing. We’ll only ever be satisfied in God, not in His gifts.