TOO MUCH HONEY? I really, love honey. That God made it so that bees make such a wonderful delicacy is a tribute to His magnificent creative power. I like honey with butter on a biscuit or even a lowly piece of toast. I used to use honey in my coffee all the time until I started trying to limit those evil carbohydrates. But I still really love honey. It’s a good thing. As much as I love it I know that you can get too much honey. Too much honey will make a person fat (fatter?). And we all know that way too much honey will make you sick. It is this that probably stands behind a verse we find in Proverbs: “Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it (25:16 ASV). What might we learn from this little verse? First, we see that the honey was found, before the days of the grocery store one obtained honey by finding it where the bees had left it. Honey, then, is something of what I call a thing of grace.” We don’t really have anything much to do with the provision of honey. The bees, according to God’s plan, make it and just leave it around for us. We do have to go get it, but it is still quite a gift. Many of God’s great blessings are like this. We note that the text says that having a sufficient amount of honey is seen as a good thing. Honey is, after all, a material thing and thus a material blessing. God blesses us with all the things we have and need. It is surely fair to say that our money comes to us as a blessing from God. Some might say, “I earn a living” and good for them. But the tools with which you or I earn our livings are gifts from God. I couldn’t do my job without the physical and intellectual abilities God gave me. You couldn’t do yours with out what He provided either. We would also point out that the abilities and talents we possess are in a sense “found” things. If you have the ability to learn math, it was given you, though how well you learn it is a matter of your own diligence (Romans 12:11, 2 Thessalonians 3:10). So “our” money is a blessing from God. What happens when we get too much honey? We become sick. What happens when we get too much of any blessing? Well, take this matter of money. What have you ‘seen happen to people who got too much money? Refine that question a bit more: What have you seen when people get too much money too easily? I think you’d agree that though it might not make them physically ill, the tendency to become spiritually ill is certainly pronounced. All of this comes under the heading of The Dw-tgers of Too Much of a Good Thing. Food is a good thing, but Proverbs reminds us: ‘is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house full of feasting with strife” (17:1 ASV). This verse makes us think of a rich person’s house that has in it everything one can imagine, except for peace and love. Too much honey can spoil one’s health; too many “blessings” may spoil one’s soul. There is another passage from Proverbs that I love and that gives us what I believe is the final word on this subject. It says, “Two things have I asked of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lies; Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is needful for me: Lest I be full and deny thee, and say Who is Jehovah? Or lest I be poor and steal, and use profanely the name of God” (30:7-9). We can definitely get too much of. a good thing, honey or otherwise. The key words here are “sufficient” and “needful.” In these times of materialism and consumerism, it is good to remember that God has counseled us to have a sense of balance even when it comes to blessings. Bill Irby
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 09:04:38 +0000
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