[Artificial Sweetener]

God and I continue to work through my [chapter reviews]. This week He takes me back to a journal I have on my desk that has many pages ‘flagged’ for potential sharing. I open to June 18th, 2024. At that time last year I was halfway through my ‘try before you buy’ month here at Kingston. I have had this reflection become present to me several times this past year with that nudge to share, today I follow the nudge. As I sit to scribe this reflection I see that I have no scripture to go with it. The Lord places today’s first reading from the book of Genesis before me.

Know that I am with you;

I will protect you wherever you go,

and bring you back to this land.

I will never leave you until I have done what I promised you. (Genesis 28)

God places the hungers and desires on our hearts that He seeks to fulfill. Staying here (at Kingston) these past 17 days has been blessed, amazing, and inspiring. Being here has brought me ‘home’ in a sense. I want this. I want to be here. As I awoke this morning to God radio, the lyrics of a song drifted through my consciousness, “Let this hunger become a pathway, become a pathway that brings me here to you.” God gently reminds me that this is not my permanent home. It is not my ultimate destination and I must guard against destination addiction. I must not allow it to become [artificial sweetener]. Let me explain. I have throughout my life substituted some form of artificial sweetener for the real thing. I have done this in an attempt to lose weight or to break my sugar addiction. Recently I came across an article that shed light on the futility of using artificial sweeteners to break the sugar habit. When we use artificial sweeteners we ‘taste’ the sweet and in tasting the sweet we are actually feeding the addiction to sweet and thereby driving a desire for more of what does not in fact satisfy. The more you know…Staying here at Kingston has heightened my desire to make this my home. This is not a bad desire, in fact I firmly believe it is part of God’s desire for me. What I need to remember though is that Kingston is meant to draw me closer to God, not become a god.

A little over one year later God has in fact guided Jeff and I to Kingston. He has delivered on a promise that He showed me again and again. The words from Genesis ring true, “I will protect you wherever you go and bring you back to this land.” This past weekend He showed me that He is already at work to using Jeff and I in this space and time to bless others. Jeff and I had to turn down a lakeside weekend with friends to puppysit my daughters puppy while she worked 4 straight 12 hour night shifts. We used the opportunity to invite my parents, my son, and my niece (along with a friend) to come and enjoy some hospitality. The inn was full! As my dad reflected on his time here he told me that he feels like he’s been on vacation for a full week. He was overjoyed to see my niece take her friend to all the places that my parents have shared with her since she was little. Katja and her friend had the opportunity to take a weekend away and connect, and relax, and school all of us in Colorku. James learned to take a weekend that wasn’t what he had really hoped for and turn it into a well spent weekend that included seeing my dad get back in a boat and for the two of them to have a ‘miraculous’ catch of 23 bass. God is indeed delivering on His promise to help me make this space amazing for others. As I continued my chapter review with last year’s journal I came across one other gem. At the time I was listening to Arthur Brooks, The Science of Happiness, on Hallow. Brooks challenges each of us to create a mission statement for our lives, so of course being a good student, I did. My mission? “My purpose in life is to answer another person’s prayer of Lord teach us how to pray.” Today as I read that statement I stopped at “to answer another person’s prayer.” That too is a beautiful purpose. I pray that this past weekend I was indeed able in some way to answer the prayer of another. Let us take the hunger that God plants in our souls and find the narrow road within that hunger that will lead us back to Him. Amen. Take a listen to the amazing song that inspired this reflection.