Only people my age remember Lem-O-Lime.  It came in an emerald green bottle and I loved to hear it fizzle as I poured it into a tall glass of ice.  I loved it so much I wanted to drink Lem-O-Lime every day.   Once my mother made calamansi juice and poured it into a tall glass full of ice and told me that it was homemade Lem-O-Lime.  I took one sip and told my mother I wanted Lem-O-Lime and calamansi juice is just not a substitute for it!  I was three and she was trying to dupe me.

My mother said she didn’t have money for Lem-O-Lime; sugar is probably bad for my teeth; I might get diabetes. She said, calamansi had Vitamin C: superior nutritional value.  I stomped off. An hour later, she came home from market and her sukli was on the table.  I saw it and said, “You said you didn’t have money for Lem-O-Lime.  There’s money on the table.  Is there any reason why I can’t have my Lem-O-Lime now?”

My mother said, “I didn’t say that I didn’t have money.  I said I didn’t have money for Lem-O-Lime.  This money is for marketing and for Meralco and the water bill.”  My mother was born to be my archenemy, I thought,  so I said, “You just don’t want me to have Lem-O-Lime!”  I was a drama queen even back then.  My mother raised her eyebrow and said, “Not all Bimbi wants, Bimbi gets.”

Alongside “no,” and “wait,” the phrase “Not all Bimbi wants, Bimbi gets;” rankled my childhood.  That phrase clipped my childish wings and rubbed off my glee.  And it was always my mother who said it to me.  Because it was oft-repeated I began to believe it and live by it.  It was useless to insist, my mother consistently applied that phrase as one applied the brakes to halt a speeding car. I was stubborn and headstrong but I conceded that I will never get all I want when I want it.  Life just didn’t revolve around me and people, especially my mother, did not exist to cater to my whims.  So now that I’ve grown up (and grown old, I admit), I thank my mother for not giving me Lem-O-Lime whenever I wanted it.  Yes, Mama, you were right, not all Bimbi wants, Bimbi gets.

So I think to myself, what if I did get all that I want, all that I could wish for and all that could be had?  What then?  What would happen?  Would having all that I want when I want it make me happy?

Adam and Eve had everything they needed and all that they could wish for in that perfect Garden of Eden God made for them.  Were they happy?  Apparently not; for when they were faced with the prospect of having more, they wanted more.  The human appetite for things cannot be sated.  Having what we want makes us want more.  It doesn’t satisfy and it doesn’t make us content.

I was reading 1 Kings 4 and two verses popped out of the page at me: verse 27 says “they lacked nothing.”  And verse 20 says “Judah and Israel were….eating, drinking, and making merry.”  Israel was in Utopia in Solomon’s time! Their king was a good administrator.  He organized the government and it ran smoothly.  Their king was wise.  Their king was highly esteemed.  Solomon was famous: rich and poor, kings, noblemen and commoners all flocked to him to hear his wise words. Above all, Solomon was rich. No plagues, no disease, no epidemics, Solomon had many sons.  Solomon had many friends and loyal followers.  To use the words of Andrew Lloyd Weber, Solomon was “high, flying, adored.”

Israel had never experienced such unprecedented peace and prosperity prior to this time or after Solomon’s time.  And more than that, they had a new temple and God was so pleased with the temple; he was so pleased with Israel; he was so pleased with Solomon; that his shekinah glory descended on the temple.  Israel was living the good life; it’s the life we all want.

But we all know the rest of Solomon’s story.  His good and promising beginnings deteriorated.  At the end of his life, his peace with God was gone; his peace with his neighbors was gone.  His loyal subjects were in rebellion against him and they were threatening secession.  His luster had dimmed.  His kingdom was in tatters.  How could this happen?

Having all that we want breeds complacency.  Complacency is defined as a “sense of self-satisfaction accompanied by an unconsciousness of actual dangers or deficiencies.”  Having all that we want makes us feel too good about ourselves, we become numb to the dangers lurking around us that threaten our peace with God.  We become too engrossed with our blessings that we begin to think we deserve everything we get and we deserve more.  We lose sight that blessings may become tests by which God measures our faithfulness and our humility.

Having all that we want makes us self-sufficient.  Self-sufficiency is probably the one thing that is most odious to God.  It bespeaks arrogance and blindness.  Creatures that depend on the Creator for their supply of oxygen can never be self-sufficient.  Creatures that depend on time that the Creator guarantees can never be self-sufficient.  And yet, we feel good when we have a fat bank account, thinking to ourselves that it doesn’t matter now if we get sick, we can pay for the hospital bills and buy medicines. Self-sufficiency cures us of our dependence upon God:  if our salvation depends upon the grace of God, can living the Christian life suddenly depend upon our abilities or accomplishments instead of solely by the grace of God?  Self-sufficiency is admirable among humans; but it is highly odious to God.  The things that are highly esteemed among men is abomination to God.

Having all that we want makes us forget God. Please do not mistake religion for faith.  Religion is the work-out of our inner faith.  Religion is what people see us do; what people see us give; where people see us go on Sundays.  Faith is looking upon God because nothing else holds our attention.  Faith is gazing upon God because all others things of this earth have grown dim in His light. Faith is holding on to God because all other things are temporary and only God is eternally the same.

Having all that we want makes us forget that we are stewards and accounting will be required. Blessings are not ours to keep, they are ours to hold and to use.  Blessings are not ours to own, they are ours to enjoy.  But God’s blessings are also responsibilities.  We are stewards of blessings God gives and someday, we will be required to render an account of those blessings.  The blessings God gives us to enjoy are earmarked for one thing and only one thing:  they must be used for the glory of God.  So, when we are asked to render an account of our lives and the blessings that God so graciously poured into our lives (our education, our employment, our talents, our families, our health, our love and our happiness) He will only ever look for one thing; he will only ever ask us one thing:  Did you give me all the glory for these blessings?

Oh, Lord, for sure, I will fail when asked to render an account of myself and my life.  I am “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; take my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal if for thy courts above.”  And I didn’t even get all I want; I just got some of what I wanted and yet, I have taken what you have given and I ran with it thinking I have now earned the right to call the shots.  Forgive me, Lord.  And thank you for not giving me all that I want.  Shape me now and mold me to want what You want.  Mold me so that when the choice is between having You and enjoying You or having things and enjoying things, I will, without question or resentment, choose You.  Let me choose what pleases You.