Getting An Answer for your Question
What does tapioca, pumpernickel, or pudding have to do with anything?
Have you seen the commercial from the progressive insurance company? It’s the one with Flo and the guy sidekick, Jamie as they approach a door to enter the “new” home quote explorer. As they walk up to the door they notice it is closed. They begin to speak to a panel hoping the door will open with a secret password. They try several words, I giggle every time I hear Flo say, tapioca, and then she says, pump –er --nickel very slowly. I don’t know why I guess it’s the thought who would make a secret password tapioca or pumpernickel. Along comes a coworker who walks up to the door, says “Hi guys” to Flo and Jamie, and the door opens.
The commercial reminds me of many of us. How we approach our relationship with the Father. We continue to think there is a secret password, a secret sauce, rather than entering in we keep looking for this elusive password. We try all kinds of prayers, fasting, declarations, faith, begging and then sometimes we just give up and say we weren’t meant to go through the door. It’s too easy, the sad part is we never just walk through the door.
What door am I talking about? Several ideas come to my mind. The door of opportunity, purpose or Spiritual growth. Apply the concept to whatever you are facing that can’t seem to get moving into.
This year especially as prophetically the years meaning is to about beginning and the gate or door of our future.
My heart hurts when I hear people say God just doesn’t come through. Or the one that really bothers me is I tried God once it doesn’t work. Then I think about the areas in my life that I get stuck.
Walking through the door involves three things. The first is to recognize we probably will have to change, and change is scary.
Second, the effort, I am not always willing to put the effort in to get results. I want the results without an effort. The Bible tells us to ask, seek, and knock. (Matthew 7:7-8)
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." Matthew 7:7-8 NIV
Third, what I would consider the biggest challenge is recognizing that I need a shift in my thinking. We have to allow what we believe to be adjusted, in order to enter new doors.
At the end of the commercial Flo and Jamie, refuse to see the entry as anything other than needing a password. Jamie says the password is “Hi guys”, then the commercial is over.
Did they walk through the door? Granted it is a commercial and they have said what they wanted to say. I don’t want to analyze and attempt to spiritualize it to death.
I can’t help but consider how all of those scenarios apply to my life. How often am I refusing to enter into a new place? How often am I learning that entering in is easy but I just don’t give it the effort to walk through? How often do I refuse to change how I think so that I can experience all God has for me?
When I begin to look at myself I can only thank the Lord for his mercy. That he loves me enough He would show me the error of my way. That He so freely offers His strength and guidance if only I would trust in His plan. That independent streak that weaves its way throughout me, the parts of me that thinks I can figure it out. I know what to do. I will do it. Instead of relying on God’s plan, purpose, strength, and wisdom.
I wonder what areas in my life that I have decided a secret password is needed to enter into all that He has for me? I wonder what areas of in my life have abandoned His favor. Because I was unwilling to just walk through the door.
One of my favorite chapters of the Bible is Psalm 139, it begins, “You have searched me Lord, and you know me”. It continues discussing how much He knows who we are. We cannot escape His Spirit. He created and formed us. His thoughts towards us are vast. Then it ends with “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Today this is my prayer that He would search me and show me any offensive ways in me. Any place in which I have not walked through doors He has put in front of me. That He would show me places that I have chosen to rely on myself instead of Him. I can ask these things and know I am not condemned because I know of his love for me and His thoughts towards me are for my good.
Just for a reference here is a youtube video of the commercial
I pray that you will enter into whatever the Lord has for you today, this month and this year!
Blessings,
Cynthia
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