Not the Real Nectar:

Recently, I was reading a book called, Scars and Stilettos, which is a memoir written by Harmony Dust.  I highly recommend this book, and I will give a brief synopsis of what this book is about.  However, I do believe that you should definitely read this book for yourself, so you can get her story from her own words.  Harmony was a stripper for money to support both herself through education and to finance her boyfriend in a very toxic relationship, who then later met a few friends that would lead her to a church and a Christian walk.  She has been able to walk away from her former life and is now even helping many young women who were in the same spot she was.  

One quote in her book after she became a Christian is, “Why would the hummingbird keep going to that man-made feeder when there was a garden set before it, filled with the real thing? I contemplated this, and it occurred to me that I had been doing the same.”  This was written watching hummingbirds go to man-made or artificial nectar when they were next to a garden and could definitely receive better nourishment from the garden.  Eventually, many of the hummingbirds noticed the garden that was sitting beside them and started to go there instead for the nectar that it provides.  

I instantly took a picture of this quote on my phone because it was something that I wanted to remember forever.  I think there are often times we as people can look past God and instead look to other things to bring us a satisfaction that isn’t the Lord.  We can often look to the items of this world that can provide us with some sort of nourishment or some form of happiness, but then we experience the love of the Lord and realize that the items of the world can never fully fulfill us.  

There may even be moments when we question in our Christian walk if the love of God is all we need, but I know that I personally then after looking to the world, always end up dissatisfied.  This quote from the book reminds me of a few verses from the Bible including, 1 John 2:17 which says, “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”  There are always going to be items and loves that come from the world.  However, those desires will eventually fall away, and they will definitely not last forever.  

If I am honest the times that I struggle with the idea of looking at nourishment from the world as opposed to the Lord is when I am focused on achievements.  It is so easy for me to believe that I need to achieve something, and then I will all of a sudden feel whole and complete.  I was incredibly happy after I finished my second half-marathon, and I was looking at my medal as though I had completed something awesome and something that shows I can do hard things.  

I also can think of this when it comes to my place of work.  I am a teacher now, and I often have the desire that I will achieve a teaching award that will place all the work and time on display in a positive way.  People will notice the work and the love that I had put in regards to teaching and for my kids.  I will be appreciated and will be loved by any school in the future that I choose to work at.  I also am looking at someday working at a non-profit, and then I have a deep desire to achieve great accolades or great success wherever I work for in regards to that profession.  

Is it wrong to train hard for something like a half-marathon?  Is it a sin to care so much about your job and to want to do the best job that you possibly can?  No, I don’t believe so.  I don’t believe that caring about making goals and trying to achieve those goals is a bad thing at all.  It is wonderful to love and care about the children that I serve and desire to make a great change in the world.  However, it is when I look at it to see if I can feel complete, as opposed to doing that work all for the glory of God, that this becomes a problem.  It is when we look to those items as bigger than the God we serve, that we start to create a god in the world, one that will leave us feeling alone and out-of-place.  

This merges two main ideas that are often in conflict.  Realizing that we live in a world and should care about the people in the world, yet should be desiring and believing that our only true nourishment is from the Lord.  This goes with my favorite verse being Colossians 3:23, which says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,”  This is a reminder that we should work hard, we should love our friendships and the people in the world, but we should do it with the overall desire to please and grow in the Lord.  Realizing that even while we are living in the world, we can still have complete nourishment from the Lord.  Do not continue to go to the artificial nectar in the bird feeder, but only go to the garden for what you need.