Donuts
This morning, I participated in a conversation about the best donuts in town. I’ve had donuts from several places around the country and, in my assessment, none of them are the best.
The city I grew up in (really outside of) was Springfield (by the way, Springfield is the most common city name so it could be in any of 41 states). There was a regional donut company that until a few years ago, claimed they had the best dang donuts in the whole world. In fact, before I retired, if I went there to visit, I’d bring an assorted dozen or two back to share with my staff. They disappeared quickly. But a couple of years ago, they sold the company and most of the recipes to a new owner. Ever since then, I find that the donuts are close to every other donut vendor. Such a shame.
But that isn’t the recollection of this devotion. When I was a small child, my dad took my sister and I, very early in the morning, to a local donut shop in Springfield. Although they went out of business a long time ago, it was called Sunrise Donuts (no relation to any other shop by that name). I remember being fascinated by the donut making process, the skill of making something, and their ability to make so many donuts in a few hours (fresh donuts are best). But the memory that sticks the most in my head was at the end of the tour, we got to sample some donuts while we chit-chatted. I remember asking the owner/operator what his favorite donut was to eat. His response was, after making them for many years, that he found that he couldn’t stand eating them anymore.
Imagine that… owning a business making something you must have loved at the start only to get to a point of not being able to stand it after so many years. What a shame.
“If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.” - Proverbs 25:16 ESV
“But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.” - Exodus 16:18
“I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. And in this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.” - 2 Corinthians 8:8-15
“For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.” - 1 Peter 4:3-6
God made us to experience pleasure but within limits. Too much of a good thing makes it not a good thing any longer.
