Three Minutes and Thirty Seconds

Three minutes and thirty seconds. That was it.

You might be more understanding if this story started with a number like three hours or even thirty minutes, but no. Three minutes and thirty seconds was all I had to wait for my waist watchers frozen dinner to cook.

But I couldn’t wait. Each second staggered and clung to the one before it, mocking my empty stomach. I walked to the pantry just to browse. There before me on the shelf at eye level was a bag of cheap-o cookies. They didn’t even look appealing but I ate one anyway. I did have that whole three minutes and thirty seconds to wait.

I walked out of the pantry, more or less the same as I walked in, when I realized my mistake.

I wanted another one.

One cookie just wasn’t going to do it for me. I shook my head in disbelief. Had I not just looked at the cookies and thought how unappealing they were? But with the taste lingering, I glanced at the whole two minutes I had left on my dinner and turned for another one.

I ate another cookie. I told myself I shouldn’t, even as it slid over my lips and past my teeth. The beep of my microwave meal sent me scampering away from the pantry and the temptations it held.

You know what? I had no business browsing the pantry when I had no plans of eating anything. Just my presence in that tiny food-laden room was proof of my intentions. And as much as I knew I shouldn’t be eating a cookie, let alone two, that knowledge didn’t keep me from eating them.

Dear friends, let me be frank. If you have no business eating cookies, get out of the pantry. Period. You got me?

For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Romans 7:18 NIV