Easter weekend was a wonderful time of connection and reflection. Nadine and I took our usual 30+ mile bike ride down to Tempe Town lake to eat breakfast at our favorite breakfast nook and back. We were both exhausted and took an hour nap. We hit our favorite shop Tommy Bahama Outlet and then out for supper at Charlstons and split a meal together. These days, we rarely order two meals, as our waist lines couldn’t take it and leave a restaurant feeling satisfied and not bloated.

Sunday has always been a special day of celebrating the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We like to go early to the sunrise service and then we have the rest of the day for family and friends. We had two of our grandsons over with the rest of the family and several of our friends. What we didn’t know was that one of the friends brought homemade cookies she had concocted the day before.

They are called butter cookies with cream cheese frosting on top. For those who weren’t on a diet, they were wonderful. They don’t seem that dangerous as they weren’t that big. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I decided to go off my no dessert, no bread diet and have just one. WRONG again. They were sinfully delicious. I took one bite and they literally melted in my mouth. Even though they were small, each one of them had a stick of butter with a little bit of flour covered by powered sugar mixed with cream cheese. It only seemed like I had just taken one bite and they were gone. My mouth screamed for another. I couldn’t take just one and neither could all others who indulged in the sweet concoctions.

They are a lot like the pleasures of this world. We get a taste of those things that God tells us not to participate in and it seems that we can’t get enough. The writer of Hebrews talked about this issue when he wrote Hebrews 11:25. He was writing about Moses who had all the possibilities for enjoying the good life in Pharoah’s house who was the ruler in Egypt. Rather than enjoying the benefits of being with the rich, it says, “He (Moses) chose to be mistreated along with (his Jewish people) rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He chose. On Sunday, I allowed my temptations to dictate my choice and the second choice.

On this journey we can be tempted by so many worldly pleasures. If we don’t choose a different path, the temptations can be like the cookie that cause us to veer away from our path God chooses to direct us. Choose wisely.