“If you have found honey, eat only enough
for you, lest you have your fill of it and
vomit it. Let your foot be seldom in your
neighbors’ house, lest he have his fill of
you will hate you” (Proverbs 25:16,17, ESV).

A modern proverb has it that after three days, both fish and relatives begin to smell bad. It’s one thing to have one’s relatives for a weekend, and quite another to put up with them, waiting for the shower, eating your food, for months!

The Wise Man suggests that pleasures such as honey and the friendship of neighbors are things we should enjoy, but only in moderation. Too much honey makes you sick, and too much visiting, even with a good friend, makes you unwelcome.

The principle here is that we should have moderation in all things. Is this a timely reminder in our age of overindulgence and greed? “Buy more clothes! Get more toys! Collect more gadgets! Supersize that, will you?”  Our society must be the most self indulgent, undisciplined in history.

It’s OK to enjoy life’s pleasures. It’s not OK to saturate ourselves in them.

–by Stan Mitchell @ www.forthright.net