Hold The Mustard

For the most part, I think all the food that's going to be discovered has been discovered. All we're getting now are variations on the same theme. As a matter of fact, someone out there thinks they can bring back old food, in new packages, and act like they've discovered the 8th wonder of the world. For instance the re-emergence of Hydrox. Who wants to eat vintage cookies, anyhow? And since when did Hydrox get more expensive than Oreo’s? HELLO??

Anyhow, I digress.

By this point in my life, I think I should have a fairly good grasp on what foods I like and don't like.

For example:

• Beans = REALLY bad


• Rigged potato chips = bad (think Ruffles)


• Broccoli = not bad, but not good, either. Just kinda there.


• Chocolate = good


• Caramel = Better


• Mexican food with no beans, no rice and a dessert of chocolate and caramel = BESTEST OF ALL BESTS!


• Toss in a Coke Light and I’m in ecstasy.

So it came as a shock to me a few weeks back when I realized, I don’t like mustard. Specifically, I don’t like mustard on hot dogs. My whole life I’ve thought that when you get a hot dog you get ketchup (Heinz, of course), mustard (yellow) and relish (sweet). Now I’ve always known that I prefer hot dogs over hamburgers, I figured that out at the ripe old age of 6. But this whole non-mustard thing was news to me.

It made me think about other things I assume about my eating preferences:

• Spaghetti = thin or regular? Turns out neither – I prefer rigatoni.


• Bread = white or wheat? Grew up eating white and switched to wheat when it became popular to do so. Truthfully, I don’t like bread.


• Pizza = Pepperoni or sausage? This was nearly as shocking as mustard. I prefer plain cheese.


• Ice cream = chocolate or vanilla. THANK GOD that is one truth I hold to be self evident: CHOCOLATE!

All of this made me think about things in my Christian life that I assume, some correctly (like chocolate ice cream) and some incorrectly (like mustard).

• God loves me = WOOT!!


• God only wants HIS best for me = BONUS!!


• My best is always His best = Um…. Well… no…


• If I obsess about something enough, it will eventually become God’s best = there just aren’t enough words to describe how wrong that is.


• If what I think is best never happens then God doesn’t love me and He doesn’t want His best for me. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll go eat worms = OK, someone just slap me now.

Where in the world do all these incorrect regular spaghetti, white bread, pepperoni pizza assumptions come from? I don’t have the answers. I don’t have any one to even blame it on. Satan comes to mind, but that’s probably too easy. Laziness? Possibly. Selfishness? Definitely. Immaturity? Probably. Human self-centeredness? Yeah ok – I’ll blame me.

What I do know is that just like my radical shift in how I eat hot dogs, I also need to do some radical shifting in how I view God. I think the hot dog thing was easier, but I think the God-thing will be better.

I also know that tomorrow for lunch I’m having hot dogs - slightly burnt with Heinz ketchup and sweet relish.

Just hold the mustard.