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Stephen Arterburn is a New York Times bestselling author with more than eight million books in print. He most recently toured with Women of Faith, which he founded in 1995. Arterburn founded New Life Treatment Centers as a company providing Christian counseling and treatment in secular psychiatric hospitals. He also began “New Life Ministries”, producing the number-one Christian counseling radio talk show, New Life Live, with an audience of more than three million. He and his wife Misty live near Indianapolis.

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FEEDING YOUR APPETITES

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Foreword by Stephen Arterburn........................................viiChapter 1: The Quest for Fulfillment.................................1Chapter 2: What God Intended.........................................17Chapter 3: The Choice Factor.........................................29Chapter 4: How Change Begins.........................................43Chapter 5: Introduction to Influences................................61Chapter 6: Filling the Void (Times Eight)............................91Chapter 7: Fruit in All Its Forms....................................107Chapter 8: New Pathways..............................................127Chapter 9: Cultivating a Divine Appetite.............................147Chapter 10: The Surrendered Life.....................................169Appendix: Twelve Steps to Feeding Your Appetites.....................175Study Guide..........................................................189Endnotes.............................................................203

Chapter One

As unique and special as each person is, all of us share a single trait. At the core of our being, we are all searching to experience fulfillment. Though that desire may drive some of us to look in one place while others choose a different route, the fact remains that we are all on the same journey. For most of us, our quest for fulfillment is a search to love and be loved, to have meaning and purpose, and to be satisfied with who we are.

We have been formed in the image of God with this innate need to become complete, whole, satisfied. Try as we may, we cannot escape this desire because God made us this way. So even though we might not know exactly what we are searching for, we can't stop trying to satisfy this inner void.

We spend much of our time trying to meet our longing for fulfillment. Our search for fulfillment drives us forward and motivates us to meet our needs and fulfill our wants. The appetites we have for those things that are necessary for our physical, emotional, and spiritual survival help fill that void.

No matter how many stories we hear about certain things in life not bringing fulfillment, we still develop strong appetites for those very things. Some choose to go after money, working and living as if their life depended on attaining wealth. Every decision, and for some, each waking moment, is driven by an appetite for more and more money.

An appetite for wealth often is an appetite that cannot be satisfied. With money, the more of it you have, the more likely you are to want even more. Having "enough," even when a person has a quantity beyond that measure, is an unattainable goal. The only people who ever find fulfillment in their wealth are those who move from being driven by acquisition of it to the charitable distribution of it.

I (Steve) have always enjoyed the television show Martha Stewart Living. Leading lady Martha Stewart specializes in sharing ideas for organization and skills ranging from cooking to gardening to decorating and beyond. As a man who loves to cook, I especially enjoyed the segments having to do with food. Her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, is a veritable work of art. Not surprisingly, Stewart became a multimillionaire for her many talents and overall penchant for doing things up "right," be it in the kitchen, garden, or living room. Yet now Martha Stewart is a convicted felon because she acted illegally during a stock sale to save a sum of roughly forty-five thousand dollars, pocket change to a person of her wealth. Then she tried to cover it up and got into bigger trouble. She threw away her reputation and will likely spend time in jail ... all for just a little more money! A person's appetite for more and more money will not be satiated unless that person changes his or her perspective on money and what is done with it. But certainly money is not the only trap.

Others struggle with an appetite for power. It matters little whether it is the mother who insists on controlling every aspect of her children's lives or the corporate executive who cannot function unless he micromanages every detail and every decision he can possibly control. Both have an appetite for total control, which, even if they were to attain, will never bring fulfillment. Quite the opposite, this appetite produces great frustration because much of what happens is beyond our pathetically short reach. Life has too many variables to factor in or manage, even when the best, most organized control specialist works out everything mathematically.

I recently spoke with a woman who felt secure only when she was in total control of her environment. Her fears of the unknown had triggered a desire for absolute control to the point that she was no longer able to enjoy living. Driving a car was too risky and sitting next to people on the bus while someone else was driving was even scarier. As a result, this woman had shrunk her entire world down to the square footage of her house, and she had lived this way for several years. She depended on others to deliver her groceries, buy her clothes, and take care of errands that required her to leave her home. The friends who thought they were helping her became wardens of her self-imposed prison. More than anything, this woman longed for safety, control, and predictability.

Hearing this sad tale, I felt instant compassion for her. I wanted to tell her to rethink her choice of existence, to instead consider facing her fears, even if it meant experiencing pain. Anything to help her see the prison she had locked herself inside. I opted to get to the heart of the matter with her. I told her she could never make her world small enough to remove every element of risk from it. The stove could catch fire, a plane could crash into her yard, or she could fall in the shower. No matter how confined and protected she thought she was, there would still be risks and unknowns out of her control. Until she resolved the underlying reason for her fear, she would feel panic and uncertainty at every turn.

Interestingly, she was only facing this issue with control because a crisis had surfaced. She had found a lump in her breast. A home-healthcare nurse came to the house and took a blood sample so a doctor could make some preliminary assessments. The results of the bloodwork were indicative of cancer, but to be certain, she needed to have a mammogram and undergo a biopsy. But that would require a trip across town, and the woman didn't think she could handle it. So there she was, confined to her home by fears of the unknown, yet possibly facing terminal cancer if she remained in the place that to her represented total security. Sound ridiculous? Certainly her desire to control her life had gone far beyond normal limits and was approaching an obsession, but what motivated her to behave this way was really a basic desire to protect herself. Don't we all have that desire?

Successful but Unsatisfied

We can all think of both famous and not-so-famous people with problem appetites that serve as examples for what can happen.

• Elvis Presley. Considered by many even decades after his death to be the king of rock 'n' roll, Elvis Presley appeared to have everything going for him. Fame, wealth, women, talent, influence, and fans were his...