Today, we explore how our everyday decisions can reflect our spiritual journeys, using the metaphor of crispy French fries to illustrate the importance of discernment. Our discussion begins with a personal experience of enjoying fries that seemed perfect but led to unexpected consequences due to hidden gluten. This mirrors how, in life, we often rush into choices based solely on appearances, overlooking the need to seek God's guidance. We emphasize the necessity of pausing and testing our options before acting, as advised in 1st John 4:4, which encourages us to discern the spirits around us. Ultimately, this episode serves as a reminder to engage in thoughtful reflection and dialogue with God to navigate our decisions wisely.
Takeaways:
In life, we often rush into decisions that seem appealing without seeking God's guidance.
The importance of pausing and reflecting before making choices cannot be overstated in our spiritual journey.
Testing the spirits is essential to discern what aligns with God's will for our lives.
We should develop a conversational relationship with God, not treat Him like a vending machine for answers.
Consequences of our decisions can be significant, reminding us to consider the long-term effects.
When faced with choices, we must stop, pray, and listen for God's direction in our lives.
Welcome to the Hobo Soul Podcast of Road advised from the Bible and from me, Yvon Prehn, someone who's a little further down the road of life.
I'll talk to you every Tuesday and Thursday for about 10 minutes and if you'd like more in depth information on walking with Jesus, you can find that at www.bible805.com website. For now, let's get started on our topic for today, which is
Episode number 61 -- Crispy French Fries and the Will of God.
Our verse for Today comes from 1st John 4:4 where it says, dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they're from God. Because many false prophets have gone out into the world, sometimes the best looking things turn out to be our most disastrous choices.
First, I'm going to share a practical experience in this and then some spiritual lessons that have to do with determining what God wants wants us to do I recently had some delicious french fries. I mean, these were perfect. They were hot and crispy and just perfectly soft inside.
They were somehow kind of really different than what I'd had before, but I didn't take time to ask why. I just gobbled them down.
Later, the unpleasant and all too familiar symptoms of my gluten allergy hit hard and I learned that restaurants sometimes coat their fries with a fine flour that is not gluten free free but is wheat based. And they do this because it makes them very crispy and perfectly soft inside. That's what these were like.
I had a whispered suggestion after I took my first bite that something wasn't quite right, but they look so good. So I just charged ahead without asking and then I paid for it.
Now, french fries aside, I later realized that this is how we so often approach decisions in life, when we really to know what God wants us to do. But we see something that looks good, we have a little taste and we jump right in. No questions asked.
We might thoroughly enjoy whatever it was, but only later do the negative consequences appear and they can be much worse than just a tummy ache. The spiritual analogies to this situation are obvious and unchanging.
When Satan confronted Eve in the Garden of Eden with a fruit that God told her told her and Adam specifically to not eat, she saw the fruit and it looked good to her. And then Satan casually whispered, did God really say you're not supposed to eat it?
Now how she responded is instructive because she didn't go back to check in with God. She didn't even ask Satan why he knew better than what God had said she didn't ask Adam what he thought.
She didn't ask anybody, apparently not even herself, what might happen if she ate the fruit. It says in Genesis 3:6 that she simply saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious and she wanted the wisdom it would give her.
In other words, she simply looked at the temptation. It looked good. She didn't stop, think, ask or pause in any way. And the passage goes on to say, so she took some of the fruit and and ate it.
The consequences were far beyond anything she imagined. And there were no do overs. So what's the point of all this combination of French fries and forbidden fruit?
Now, the verse I open with reminds us to test what's out there. We need to test things because Satan hasn't quit in his accusations.
We've got to stop and think, as this verse says, to really test the spirits, test what's going on.
The consequences, of course, if we don't may not be as driven drastic as Eves were, but they can certainly be destructive to our personal lives and to those around us. So what should we do? What's a modern day application of testing the spirits?
Well, the number one thing that comes to mind to me is that whatever you might be wrestling with, one of the most important things that we should do in testing anything is to just stop, to wait, to not do things too quickly. Testing always takes time, especially if we're feeling emotionally charged up, angry, overly irritated, demanding our rights, whatever.
A mental and sometimes physical walk away timeout is essential. There's verse after verse after verse in the Bible that tells us to be still, to stop, to rest, and again and again to wait the Lord.
Now, after we pause, stop, wait, what should we do next? Now, as we are pausing, we're faced with an interesting situation where we then have time to ask, lord, what do you want me to learn from this?
What are you trying to tell me now? Now one thing I want to say in suggesting that is that when we do that, we're not just looking for an immediate answer.
We are developing a conversational relationship with the Lord, which is what he wants to have with us. God isn't a vending machine where we put in a prayer and out comes an answer.
Our God is a person and Jesus died so we could have a personal interpersonal relationship with him. If we spent time in the Bible getting to know how God thinks, how he feels about things, he can call up words from his Word into our minds.
This is one of the ways that he can talk back to you James one also tells us how our interactions can work when we're testing alternatives in our actions. And the message puts it this way, it says in James 1 consider it a sheer gift, friends.
When tests and challenges come at you from all sides, you know that under pressure your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. And here's my thought here.
This is where you want to pause because we always want to get out of the pain before God is often done with what he wants to do in it. But then the verse continues, let it do its work so that you become mature and well developed, not deficient in any way.
If you don't know what you're doing. Pray to the Father. He loves to help and you'll get his help and won't be condescended to when you ask for it.
Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who worry their prayers are like wind whipped waves. Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way.
Adrift at sea, Keeping all your options open. We just need to listen to what God wants to say to us.
So next time, when something looks super good but you have a doubt about it, don't just gobble it up. Pause, chat. Talk to the Lord about it. See if any specific word from the Bible comes to mind. But mostly, again, just sit still and listen.
Maybe a friend will say something. Maybe you'll get a calm assurance about what to do next. But remember that God promises you'll get his help. He's just been waiting for you to ask.
That's all for this podcast, for transcripts, links to related material, and much more to help you learn to know, trust, apply and teach the bible. Go to www.bible805.com for now, let me end with this benediction and prayer.
May you walk each day surrounded by the gracious love of the Father, guided by the gentle wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and conscious of the astoundingly real presence of Jesus, who will walk with you until you're no more a hollow soul, no more a transient wandering heart, but at home in the kingdom prepared for you with your God forever. Amen.
