I wrote in The Lost Taste of Glory how people today are incapable of enjoying the life God gave them because they are addicted to the idea of spicing up their life. Our sensualised culture has so distorted our taste for life that we react to and even choke on things that are just as God made them. We have lost our taste for glory.

We have been given life abundant in Christ Jesus. He gives us life that is far more wonderful than anything we have known. But what Christ gives us is based on the real taste of life. Some people will reject the very blessings they are offered because they have lost their taste for what is tasty.

I mentioned before how that our addiction to sensual delight so spoils us that things that are delightful no longer delight us. Things that are sweet are no longer sweet enough. Things that are lovely no longer appeal to us. It is not that we are spoiled for the ordinary, but that we are ruined and can no longer enjoy that which has real flavour and value. We are not ‘above’ those things; we are outside the enjoyment of real things. We have not transcended, but been submerged in mire. Such people chase the new and exotic experience, finding less pleasure in it than unspoiled people find in the plain things the addict spurns.

Two examples of people needing to spice up their natural life in order to feel the thrill of living come from my younger years. One of my teenage friends had a friend who made his life exciting through sleep deprivation. The young man found it exciting to be living in a state of total exhaustion. Everything he did demanded his utmost concentration, especially driving a car. This was a great source of excitement for him, that at any moment he could succumb to sleep and kill himself in an accident. I failed to see the merit in his risk-reward equation.

Another friend who had been saved from a life of sin and was now working in the red-light area of Sydney pointed out a couple of young people to me. They were dressed in outlandish garb that made them look ridiculous and completely misfit for normal society. Since he had come from that same background he asked me why I thought those young people dressed that way. I had no real idea. He told me they were looking to be rejected. They wanted the pain of being stared at and avoided by people, as a personal experience that gave them the feeling of standing out and being able to make an impression. Rather than doing so by fitting in with normal life, they felt driven to feed on the rejection and contempt which they attracted.

Whatever a person’s ‘spice’, most westerners today are addicted to something they have given themselves to, or have used to add new dimension to their life. Some don’t know what they are looking for but they feel an inner drive to get that ‘something extra’ to give them an ‘over the top’ experience.

The result is they have lost the taste for normal. They have also lost the taste for glory. Many people reject the offers they have for a normal and rewarding life, because they are addicted to fame, success, sensual delight, freedom, independence, making their own mark, being recognised, proving themselves, keeping up appearances, and so on. Even if they don’t know what it is they are seeking they will spurn anything that seems ‘ordinary’ because it couldn’t possibly supply what they feel a desperate need for.

Being a housewife is an ordinary experience and the women who pursue it find to be wonderfully rewarding and meaningful. Yet it is a despised option. It is the un-tasty option that many women reject today because they have a taste for something else. It is too ‘ordinary’ for people who desire greatness or significance, wealth, power, fame, etc.

People are lured away from home, their study, their job, their family, slow moving predictable paths, etc, in the hope of the quick win, hasty upgrade, opportunistic breakthrough, and so on. Many of these people are conned out of their money, damage their relationships, lose their friends, trash their career, waste their potential and trip up their whole life, because they hanker for the added spice and exciting opportunity.

I assume that just about all westerners have been damaged by this phenomenon. So let me ask you, Can you enjoy the simple things God has given you? Do you enjoy your family, your marriage, reading the Bible, prayer, service, doing your work, blessing others and trusting God? If you can’t enjoy spending your life in God’s service, doing what He wants you to do on His time frame and His way, then you are probably damaged goods. You probably have had your taste-buds damaged by the world’s sensuality. So call out to God for some divine healing of your being. Get your taste for life restored, and then live your life for God’s glory.