Whenever you travel, it’s always a big decision to figure out where to eat and it’s best to get a consensus before you stop. Well we decided to stop at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Arizona and when we walked in, I was really more concerned about where the bathrooms were, than anything else. Everyone else went to be seated in the restaurant and I headed straight for the bathrooms, I was completely focused on where I was going and why. At that point, it was all about me. I came through the door of the hallway and there was the sign…men…I walked right in…stepped into one of the stalls and all of a sudden I thought to myself, you know – that’s weird – I didn’t see any urinals when I walked in. Now, I’ve been in some pretty strange bathrooms in other countries – but this is restaurant chain in the good old USA. They should have urinals…maybe I should recheck this whole situation.
All of a sudden I had that funny feeling in the pit of my stomach…not the one that says “oh I gotta go”, but the one that tells you “oh something just isn’t right here”. So, I walked out of there quicker than I walked in – I looked around and fortunately there wasn’t anyone watching. I went over to the other bathroom – and that sign said…men…so what is up with that. Well, did you ever realize that they just added a WO to men to spell women. Ya, that is how it’s spelled, and when you come into that hall area at the angle that I did, there is a small wall that obstructed the WO part of the word and I was too much in a hurry to pay attention to what the sign really said. So I had walked into the women’s bathroom…and fortunately there wasn’t anyone in it when I did. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than smart.
As we hurry through our lives, often the focus is on ourselves…our needs…all of the things we think we have to do to fit in, to be comfortable. Then, all of a sudden we find ourselves in a place we know we don’t belong, a situation that just isn’t right. You get that funny feeling in the pit of your stomach because you know you’re not doing what God wants you to. It’s what you do from there that matters. Do you just ignore it so you can fit in with the crowd, or do you stop, look around and realize you aren’t where you should be in your life? We need to become more God centered instead of self-centered.
Romans 12:1 -2 (TMNT) in The Message instructs us like this…
"1So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
