I deserve to eat this donut because….

1. Someone else is eating one.
2. I had a hard day.
3. I’m the only one who does any work around here.
4. I’m on vacation.
5. I’m sick.
6. It’s a holiday.
7. I’m at a party.
8. It’s not fair that everyone else gets to eat, and I don’t.
9. I have such a hard life.
10. I want it.

I don't know how many times I've written entries like these on my lie-truth charts. I even felt like I deserved a treat when I was good on my diet! It wasn't until I wrote the truth over and over again that I began to see that these statements were really lies.

In the olden days, the word deserve meant that you earned something. For example, if you worked 40 hours a week, you deserved to get paid.

I guess that begs the question: What kind of work would you have to do to “earn” a donut?

I can only think of two things. The first is working in a donut shop that gives you a free donut with each work shift, and the second is working out at a gym long enough to “pay” for the calories that are in the donut.

Okay, maybe when we say we deserve a donut, we’re not talking about the old-fashioned definition of the word.

What deserve has come to mean in our society today is that we “deserve” something if someone else has it. In other words, it’s not fair if someone else has something, and we don’t.

Is that biblical? No, I can’t say that it is. Is it practical? I can’t say that’s true either. We can always find someone better off and worse off than we are.

What if we were to line up all the people in the world one by one according to their lifestyles, with the worst lives on the left and the best lives on the right. We could call this our “fairness” line. Where do you think our lives would fit in on that line?

Do you think we could look at all those people to the left of us and honestly say, “I deserve a donut after my hard day”?

And even if I did deserve that donut, would it be a reward? One donut, if eaten outside my boundaries, often leads to another donut, which could lead to a binge. Is a binge really a reward?

If I’m going to go with the “I deserve it” idea, I should at least make sure that what I’m deserving is a reward and not a punishment.

Better yet, I could focus on the blessings God's given me - and not the blessings He's given others.

In other words . . . EYES OFF THE DONUTS!!!