Snacks that Appeal

I am an individual with several weaknesses. One of which is a 100 calorie bag of something called “Reese’s Snacksters.” This bag includes cereal puffs, peanut butter chips, cereal squares and Reese’s pieces. It’s more or less peanut butter in a bag.

This past weekend I shared a bag of them with a three year old, toe-headed ball of fire. I adore everything about him. After I opened the bag for him I watched him carefully sift through the bag and separate the contents. He’d immediately pop the Reese’s pieces in his little mouth (more than likely because they were his favorite) and set the rest aside on the end table. Maybe it was the color that was appealing to him, or the hard candy shell that covers them, or perhaps he just preferred the taste of them over the others.

Whatever the reasoning, the bottom line was that he chose them. He was given a bag containing several options to satisfy his hunger, yet he chose what he wanted at that particular moment, without hesitation…

It’s funny how we seem to go about our lives in a very similar way…

We take in the things that appeal to us the most, without much thought or hesitation and leave the rest behind. Discarding it. Maybe out of some sort of hunger we go back for the leftovers, but typically they fall by the wayside.

We go for the designer clothes, the fast cars. We want the latest gadgets. We get involved in relationships because the outer beauty is simply too beautiful to pass up. We desire the jobs with the higher pay so we have more money to spend, rather than simply being happy and loving what we do regardless of the size of the paycheck.

…we want what meets our needs.
…and usually we want it immediately.

…Only to find out later that it didn’t satisfy us the way in which we thought it would.

So I have to wonder why it takes so many of us so long to realize that God’s plan may be that those things we discard and disregard might just be his greatest blessings for us. I do believe that God’s timing is perfect, and yet could it be that we push His timing aside because we have our minds set on our own timing and selfish desires?

There are moments in my life that I regret some of my past decisions. Thankfully, we serve a God of second chances. Sometimes even third and fourth ones! And He redeems those choices and creates something much more beautiful than we can ever imagine…