Eat Your Peas!

It's funny how we think and the changes in how we think with time and experience. The stuff we thought important at one time fall by the wayside, and the stuff I deem important today may not be important at all tommorrow. Conversely, the things I think unimportant right now may become ALL important down the road. I remember how angry or frustrated I could get when I thought one of my kids was wasting an opportunity or giving up on a pursuit I thought important.

I remember when my son quit the Pop Warner football team and how agitated I became with him because I felt he was very good and giving up on something that he should stick with. Now I realize it was probably my own dream I was chasing as I vicariously wanted to see my own dream of achieving football success through him. You see, I was pretty good too and quit on my dream when I could have went to college and taken it to another level but decided to go another direction with my life.

I remember when my daughter decided to give up the cello. She was pretty good too and her teacher was one of the best in the region. Her instructor played in the symphony and told us that talented cello players were few and far between and schools would gladly give scholarships to those who come to their schools to play. But she decided to give it up and it really frustrated me. Honestly, I didn't really care that much about the cello, but I cared alot about that scholarship. Again, perhaps, it was more my own failure than hers. From an early age I was a musician too. I learned to play a guitar at the age of 10 or 11. I remember my first guitar, a Silvertone solid body electric. My dad taught me to play as he himself was pretty good and played in a band on weekends for fun and extra income.


In the early years I devoted myself to playing my guitar day and night, night and day. I was getting pretty good and could play the top 40 of most anything in those days of 70's rock'n'roll. I had my own little band, several actually, and eventually ended up joining the musicians union and playing with my dad's band every weekend. But again, I stopped applying myself when I started making a little money and music stopped being a PASSION I pursued and just a JOB I performed. Alas, another opportunity wasted, another gift left virtually unwrapped. I wish I would have taken lessons, sat under the best, and really done something with the talent I have been given. But I didn't and It is just another thing I wonder what could have been...



You see now what I meant in my opening statement. I don't think I was ever disappointed in my kids, it was a floating disappointment within myself that I had a hard time putting my finger on until lately. When you are young you live in the moment and the moments change. You change, you are molded by those moments and actually become a product of your choices and the impact they have on you. It is easy to run to and fro and difficult to stay fixed and purposeful in your life. Instead of doing ONE thing well, we settle for a MYRIAD of things done partially well or even haphazardly at times because we put too much on our plate. It is hard to be a specialist at hodgepodge! In the real world we don't look for a specialist of multitudinous of multiplicities when we are sick. We want someone who knows our particular problem or situation inside and out and can give or do specific things to help us. We do not want generalization or approximation, we want specifics!



Then why aren't we more specific? I ask myself why haven't I been more aimed and determined? David said in Psalm 27:4, "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple" Because anything less is a waste of talent, a waste of time, a waste of life. I hate waste. Waste not--want not. That's how I was raised. I know that is not an actual Bible verse, but it should be right over there next to 'cleanliness is next to godliness'. This has really been rolling over me this week. I remembered a time when Cassandra, my daughter, was 4 years old. She was what I would consider a good eater as long as you fed her want she wanted.




She was a very picky eater to say the least. For example, she absolutely hated onions with a passion. If she saw them in or on or even in the vicnity of her food she would turn up her nose and leave the food in disgust. BUT! She loved salsa, a dish filled with raw onion.



Back in the early to mid 1980's Chi Chi's restaurant was very popular as a Tex-mex eatery. At least once a week from the time that she was eating table food we visited Chi CHi's which was close to our home in Indianapolis where I was a pastor. She literally grew up eating this salsa by the bowl full. Once when we had friends at our church for a revival meeting Cass and our evangelists' daughter who was the same age as Cass, about 3, got into a fight over the salsa dish while we got lost in conversation. Lauren reached over and grabbed her arm and bit a huge, hard bite on Cassie's arm trying to defend her bowl of salsa. Later, after we got them quieted down and got them each their own bowl of salsa, we looked over and they both had the bowls tipped up to their mouths drinking it like fine wine. It was hilarious!




Isn't it funny how she would not touch and onion in anything else but when it came to salsa she ate it voraciously. Well, once at the dinner table at the age of 4, we were enjoying a rare meal at home. I believe it was pork chops, one of my personal favorites. Along with it, Terri had made potatoes and green peas. We dished out her plate with a chop, some potatoes, and a helping of green peas. She ate the chop, devoured the potatoes and would not touch the peas. She went to excuse herself from the table and I stopped her and said "Wait a minute girl, you're not going anywhere till you eat those peas." She started to cry, being the sensitive girl she is. But even in tears she was not going to eat those peas. I scolded her and told her how hungry little children were in third world countries and how we simply could not waste this food. I told her how good those peas were for her and how she needed to learn to like them.





Finally I pushed a few peas off to the side and gave her a compromise. You eat just these few peas and you can be excused. She put some them in her mouth and then said she needed to go to the bathroom. Unbeknownst to me, she had pushed them into her chubby little cheeks and went into the bathroom and spit them out. I finally ended this standoff and the fact is she won. I could not best a 4 year old at the dinner table and what is really bad is she outsmarted me! She ate NO peas and outside of some emotional scarring, she walked away unscathed. To this day she still wouldn't eat a pea for any reason under any circumstance.

I wonder how many times God has put peas on my plate in my life and invited me to eat. Yet I turned my nose up and wasted a valuable experience or blessing because it simply didn't appeal to me. Some things we love, like a great dessert, we would never pass. But what about your peas. What about those things you don't like, you may even have a distaste for. Will you eat? How does prayer taste to you, how much do you LOVE to fast? How much do you savor fellowship with people who you may not pick as friends, but they need you and they need your ministry. He will not force ANYTHING on us, He's so much smarter than I as a loving father. But He has some things for you that you need, and that you may not like, but go ahead and eat anyway, don't waste ANY of His goodness! It is necessary for your growth, it is important for your BALANCE.

My next blog I want to share with you about a waste that changed my life. Bless you and remember: EAT YOUR PEAS!