When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Deuteronomy 20:19
My entire life, I’ve had two appetites in conflict within me. Part of me wants to be in shape, which means I should eat right and go to the gym. Another part of me though, just wants to sleep in and eat donuts. I have a long list of yard projects that I really want to get done. Those projects are a lot of work though, and when I have free time, I’d prefer to just sit and watch TV. This conflict often boils down to what I want tomorrow and what I want today – what I want long-term and what I want right now. My ongoing conflict is between instant gratification and delayed gratification.
This has been a profound life problem which was never more evident than in my drug use. On the one hand, I wanted recovery. At any given moment though, I just wanted to be high. Recovery meant a lot of hard work, headaches, and sacrifice, while feeling good was just a pill away. It was futility to seek lasting satisfaction in drugs however because the high continually faded, leaving me empty and addicted. In my despair, I should have done whatever it took to get sober. I felt terrible about myself though and the fastest way to feel better was more pills.
Today’s passage illustrates this conflict between instant and delayed gratification. In it, as the Israelites prepared to enter the promised land, God provided some instruction. When they besieged a city, cutting down trees for military use, they were to spare the fruit trees. If they cut down the fruit trees, they’d have wood today, but they’d lose out on a food source tomorrow. If they spared the fruit trees, they’d make a sacrifice now but eat well later. Think about tomorrow.
My now appetite demands immediate gratification, which is almost always unhealthy. Living by faith and recovery then, has meant learning to think about tomorrow, choosing delayed gratification which is usually the healthy choice. I may not be using drugs today, but this is an ongoing struggle for me. It’s just always so tempting to do the easy pleasurable thing. There’s always a price to pay for immediate gratification though and authentic joy is most often found in doing the hard thing. The right thing is rarely easy or immediately gratifying, but if I desire joy, faith, and recovery, I must learn to think about tomorrow.