A Lid Popping Experience

Have you ever had a craving for a particular food item and not because you were pregnant or your hormones were out of whack. Well, yesterday afternoon between that lunch and dinner lull I began to crave popcorn. So, I pulled out our air popper, placed one scoop of popcorn into the machine, set a bowl under it to catch the much craved little nuggets of little nutritional value of white air, turned it on, and began heating up some butter. Once the butter was through I went to wash off the knife from the butter when it happened…

The lid of the air popper when flying off onto the floor and the other part onto the counter top. I quickly turned the water off and began to frantically try to get the popcorn to stay in the machine and place the lid back on. It was a fiasco. Unsuccessfully I got the lid to stay halfway on as I picked up the top portion off the floor. Blowing it off (10 second rule), I placed it on the very top only to discover my attempts of trying to keep popcorn from exploding anywhere else were useless. I pulled the plug and began scooping up the popcorn off the counter top and into the bowl that was supposed to be catching it. I threw what went on the floor away. (The ten second rule didn’t apply to what I was about to put in my mouth.) As I began to wipe down the counter top and pour the butter and salt onto the snack, the Lord placed a great analogy in my mind.

Some of you may have heard the clichés plug into Jesus, plug into the source, or something along those lines. Well, those clichés began to resonate as I began to relate my air popper experience to being plugged into Jesus and it looked something like this:

When you plug the air popper into the electrical outlet it immediately begins to blow hot air throughout the machine. Likewise, when you accept Christ as Lord of your life, you immediately receive His power through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is like the air that immediately begins to blow throughout the air popper machine the second you turn it on. Knowing analogies can only be taken so far we could stop there. However, it occurred to me that if I had not placed the kernels into the machine, I would not be eating that delicious, much craved snack right before dinner. I would only have a lot of hot air blowing around with no results or food to eat. Seemingly, if I do not take the time to read and place God’s word into my body, the Holy Spirit is unable to heat those words up in my life, cause a spiritual chemical reaction resulting in an overflowing, lid popping off experience that is seen and felt by those around me.

There was no way I could ignore the popcorn exploding everywhere. It had to be dealt with and could not be ignored. When I take the time to study and read God’s word, He is faithful to take that desire and effort and open up my eyes to His truth and the way He wants me to live my life so that He is glorified. When I have spent time with Him and He spills out of every pore in my body my life begins to reflect more of Him and less of me and my husband, children, and those around me are given the opportunity to taste His goodness too. When the lid pops off in my life, those around me are given the choice to scoop some of God’s glory up into a bowl to eat and meditate on or they can throw it in the trash. Prayerfully, I pray my children will taste His goodness and have a desire to put God’s word into their own air popper so that they too can experience what it feels like to have the lid pop off in their own lives.

My Heart’s Prayer: “Lord, fill my husband, children, and myself with the knowledge of Your will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that we may walk worthy of You, fully pleasing to You, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. May we be strengthened with all power, according to Your glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to You, our Father, who has enabled us to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. You have rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son You love. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, in Christ” (Colossians 1:3-14) Lord, continue to fill me with a desire to place kernels of Your word in my life so that the lid might pop off and my family can taste and have a desire to personally experience Your words and Your work in their lives as well. In Jesus Name, Amen.