¹² “Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12 CSB)

Do you find yourself consumed with some aspect of your life, work, a hobby, your finances…the list could go on and on. These things are all permissible but are they all beneficial.

You may be quick to say that your work or finances or family are beneficial, and they are. But if they are all consuming and there is no room for God and His plan, then they have mastery over you.

This is a hard argument. It is easy to see addiction as a negative mastery over a life, but work, family, finances much harder to put into this category. However, anything that consumes us can have a negative impact upon our lives. Especially our spiritual lives.

The gap between permissible and consuming can be a very narrow one indeed. We can find ourselves slipping quickly into allowing something to become all consuming. Without a balance a positive consumption can become a negative.

This is not to say that the good parts of our lives do not need attention. Though that attention should come from a spiritual place where we filter it through God’s eyes and God’s plan.

I think we often allow ourselves to be consumed because it is simply habit. We get into autopilot in life and before long we have allowed everything but God to consume us. This is why starting the day with scripture is so very important. It can set the tone for the entire day and put it into perspective.

Consider what consumes your time and if it is in balance with your spiritual life.