Are you somebody who just hates to ask for directions? Well, evidently, I am!
I headed out to the grocery store last week to pick up some items for our Asbury Café. On my way out the door, Cheryl shouted out to me to grab a pack of flour tortillas.
OK, Just how hard can that be? But, for crying out loud I searched every square inch of that store and to spare my life, I could not locate those flour tortillas.
The grocery story has a clerk who stands by all the time watching those self-checkout registers. Apparently, people have tremendous trouble operating those things.
I saw a fellow argue with a register one time, screaming that he had put all the money in there that he was going to. And, he used some bad words at the machine.
Well, this is why they have a clerk at the self-checkout area. It’s to keep people from going postal on a register…and to keep me from going insane when it keeps asking if I brought my own bags or not.
Anyhow, I mustered up some courage to ask this young girl if she could for the love of Pete, just tell me where they kept the flour tortillas.
She said she would go show me. I was mortified! Did I look that stupid?
“Oh no,” I protested, “Just tell me where they are and I can go find them all by myself!”
She wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted that she take me and show me the way.
So, evidently I did look that stupid. And, everybody in the store watched as she took this old geezer by the hand and everybody in the store saw how senile I was and shook their heads in disgrace.
That’s how I felt anyway. But, it was clear that unless I let go completely, I could never find those flour tortillas.
And, behold she brought me directly to them! OK, for crying out loud, who in their right mind would put them with the dried beans?
Aren’t tortillas bread? So, why are they not in the bread aisle?
Navigating a grocery store is crazy. It is senseless when people put things were there is no logical explanation for them to be.
Yes, dried beans ‘may’ go with flour tortillas but tortillas are bread! I know, I just need to let this go…and follow.
God told Abraham to let go and follow. He divulged to Abraham that he and his wife Sarah would have a child even though they were in the late winter of their lives.
Abraham fell down laughing. But, it was no joke and when Isaac was born there was some real laughter going on…the joy kind.
Throughout the Bible, God tells Gideon, Moses, David and so on…to essentially shut up and follow.
Finally, God comes in person and says there is a very narrow way and it is difficult to find. God says, “I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).”
And, let’s be honest here, we will never find those flour tortillas all by ourselves…though lots of people try.
I do not care how much confidence we have or what it will cost us with regard to feeling shame, but we will never find our way through this world without Christ.
So, maybe today is a good day to let of pride. Maybe today is a good day to let go of fear.
Maybe today is a good day to simply surrender it all.
And, the last time I checked, this is what salvation through Christ looks like. We surrender everything, even our worldview to Jesus.
I believe it’s heresy to live otherwise.