The Empty Box of Turkish Delight

“At last the Turkish Delight was all finished and Edmund was looking very hard at the empty box and wishing that she would ask him whether he would like some more. Probably the Queen knew quite well what he was thinking; for she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had tasted it would want more and more of it and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves.” (from C. S. Lewis’s Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

Like Edmund and his insatiable desire for Turkish Delight, I, too, struggle with contentment. With me, the struggle centers on situations and circumstances rather than stuff, but you know the feeling. It often surfaces on Christmas morning after a mountain of gifts has been leveled. Piles of wrapping and tissue paper, boxes, and bows sit like dirt piles at a construction site and out come the words, “Is that it?”.

Parents turn “The Look” on the selfish child and follow it with “The Talk” in which one receives a lecture on the evils of selfishness and how one should be thankful, etc. Have you been here? Solomon mentions this problem of discontentment in Proverbs 30:15-16:

“A leech has two daughters and both are named Give me! There are four things that are never satisfied:

the world of the dead,

a woman without children,

dry ground that needs rain,

and a fire burning out of control.” (GNT)

Could it be that God purposefully designed an empty spot within us that only He could fill? Filling that hole with electronics, video games, or clothes works about as well as a warm Coke when you’re thirsty. It just doesn’t meet the need. To fill it, you must look to something vastly bigger and better than your new Madden 2012 or your new cell phone: God Himself through His Son, Jesus.