Lessons from a Scone

There is this scone that I love.

It’s a savory scone—not sweet in the slightest.  Crumbly like a good scone should be, studded with bacon and cheddar.  It is good warm and it is good cold.  It is good to eat when you have a cold and are sad and full of self-pity and it is good to eat when you want to celebrate something.

My husband has purchased this scone for me for birthdays, celebrations, vacations, and holidays.   Only one bakery in our vicinity makes it.  It is my annual Friday morning treat.  I would wage war for this scone.

Once, when we were planning a trip, I was considering the calendar dates. “We’ll get back late Thursday,” I announced, and then brightened.  “Oh!  Just in time for Scone Day!”

My husband laughed.  “You’ve planned our lives around this scone!”

He wasn’t entirely wrong.

My love for that scone, of course, does not supersede my love for God, although I hope He has those scones somewhere when I get to heaven.  But the comment, and my wildly affectionate love for that scone, did get me thinking about how even good things can gain dangerous purchase in our lives.

I am living blessedly right now, though I am painfully aware how quickly that can change.  God has de-fanged and rendered void some troubles and problems; those troubles and problems that I do have or that my family has seem manageable.  And lots of really wonderful things have happened, big answers to prayer and unsought-for gifts.

But this is its own sort of dangerous place.

During the dark night of the soul, the perpetual struggle is the sense—albeit incorrect—of God’s absence or silence.  During the blessed daylight of the soul, the perpetual struggle is that the ravenous desire for God’s presence shrinks beside the allure of other gifts.

I like peace and prosperity.  I like waking up in the mornings not feeling like I have to pray through the skin of my teeth just to get through the day.  I like a sense of stability and security, of feeling that my problems are nothing beyond me, that I can just enjoy.

And God wants us to enjoy.

But our desires so quickly become disordered.  The person whose company I enjoy becomes the person I need to have around for comfort’s sake.  The will to maintain stability and comfort can lead to all sorts of disconcerting compromises.  The pursuit for prosperity can edge out good fruit.

We can start to resent God when we value His things more than we value Him. 

Really, even in smaller ways, we fall away.  When our life and peace of mind isn’t depending on the morning prayer, sometimes we forget it.  Glimpses into Scripture become more cursory.  We stop reflecting on ourselves and who and how we are with God. 

This, I think, is why the practice of gratitude is so important.  It recognizes that the good things in our lives have a source in God.  It points us back to the One who has made and given so much of what has blessed us.  It draws us away from Enjoying All The Things to Enjoying The God Who Gave All The Things.    

There are religious traditions that say too much good fortune means the gods will curse you, or that you will draw too much negative cosmic attention and thus bad luck.   As Christians, we don’t have to worry about that.  God gives us good things; He likes to give us good things.  He likes when we enjoy and rejoice in what He gives.  I think it is, in fact, one of His great delights.

We just need to be mindful to fix our attention on the Giver.  The consequence if we don’t is that as circumstances inevitably shift, as life grows difficult or our good gifts leave us for a time, we will find ourselves flailing, forgetting, desperate in our moment of need.

What I’m saying is: enjoy the scone.  Get that scone every single Friday for as long as you possibly can.  But maybe don’t rearrange your life around it.  And when you eat it, and thank God for this and all His other good gifts, don’t forget to ask for the gift of prioritizing God over the blessings He offers.