About a week or so I saw an Instagram post from Andrew Peterson (one of my favorite songwriters). The little square displayed a pint jar of golden honey fresh from his farm. I glanced through the caption where he proclaimed that nothing compares to the flavor and joy from honey from your own bees on your own property.
As I finished reading, the little tug of my hobby-loving-heart began to pull harder. Maybe I need bees. I’m missing out. I could feel so much more connected and humbled because of it. Hobby-envy had struck again. Maybe you’ve felt it, too while scanning the squares of Instagram or when a friend showed you their latest project. Hobby-envy makes us believe we can only learn, grow, and find contentment through that sourdough loaf or that embroidery pattern.
Of course this is false. While our hobbies can provide us with so many benefits, it’s important to remember that it’s not actually that thread in the needle or that crumb of sourdough (as delicious as it is) that’s changing us. It’s the whole process and the reminders that the Holy Spirit uses throughout. This means that instead of settling into Hobby-envy, we can actually join other hobbyists and learn from them, even if we don’t participate.
Andrew Peterson may eat his honey and praise the sustaining nature of God who fashioned the bees on his property to provide him directly with their labor, but we can read his words and be encouraged to dwell on similar truths. That jar of honey in our pantry? Bees buzzed around flowers and labored to make it, too. Yes, there are some differences, but instead of finding dissatisfaction with our own circumstances, what if we used his reminder towards connectedness and smallness to push us to look past the labels and think about the bees that formed our own? What if we stopped to ponder on the amount of hands it took to bring this bottle of honey on our kitchen table? What if we slowed down to see how the Lord has gifted us the harvests of this world with a bottle of honey or a can of corn?
I’ve written about how our limited nature can’t sustain every hobby—we just won’t be able to have every experience. Yet we can choose to learn from our sisters and brothers who take on different forms of play that we can’t. This is a kindness from God to lead us towards greater worship.
The next time we see a sourdough baker talking about the what she’s learned from a loaf of bread can we allow it to move us to delight instead of envy? Can it push us to gratefulness for the store-wrapped bread in our own kitchen? It was still made by the hands of someone. The recipe was still crafted with care, and the bread can still smell just as sweet. The sustenance from God can give us another moment to glory in the God who made food and taste and the whole art of baking.
Because again, the point isn’t the object, but the God who works underneath. He’s the one who truly humbles us, offers joy, and changes our hearts—and he’s not bound by circumstances. He can do it with a sleeve of Wonder bread just as much as a freshly baked bread with home-made honey.