Have Your Cake and Eat It
To have your cake and eat it refers to two things you can’t have or do at the same time.
A less puzzling earlier version of the expression is to “eat your cake and have it.” You can have cake and then eat it. However, if you eat the cake, you no longer have it.
When my husband and I married, we froze the top layer of our wedding cake until our first anniversary. The first year, we had our cake. At the beginning of the second year, we ate it. We could not enjoy the benefit of keeping and eating our cake at the same time. Each year, we made a choice.
You may want to enjoy both, but you can’t.
For example, you can’t have:
- Government benefits without tax payments
- Good grades without study time
- A new house without a financial investment
You must choose between your desires.
Do you keep your cake, or do you eat it?
All of life requires choices. Seek God’s guidance and choose wisely, since you reap what you sow.
“Who, then, are those who fear the Lord? He will instruct them in the ways they should choose” (Psalm 25:12 NIV).
Thanks to Lam DeBrot for the suggestion.
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