From my journal;

Triumph (Certain Victory)

I triumph over nothing or no one without The Lord by my side.

I am not victorious without Him – He balances and restores me, all of my life shall be found in Him.

Yet I become jaded to this beauty – disenchanted. I want the heart of a new believer.

I hate that I do not feel overwhelemed with Your beauty.

Replace my stuff with You.

Make me new again.

Use me foe Your glory.

I eat at Chick-Fil-A well… maybe more than I should, but regardless, I’m there a good bit. I couldn’t say that the reason is because it is what Jesus would do or if it’s because I ate there when I was a kid and like many adults with McDonald’s I have some sort of positive association.

…or maybe it’s because the food is just top notch.

Doesn’t matter, there is something that always sticks out to me when I eat there – ‘My Pleasure!’

Okay, at first it’s sort of weird and nice but then you start to notice, they always say this when you say thank you. Like a brain-washed zombie whose only goal is to give you quality chicken, and LOVE doing it. I’m sure they love their jobs and all but there is no way they wake up everyday going ‘I really would love to dish out some chicken today, Lord, let’s do this!’

Is there something wrong with me, am I the only person who this weirds out? I mean, I’m genuinely thankful that they’ve given me a meal, so I say ‘Thanks’ then they look at me with a huge smile and say ‘My Pleasure,’ but I know… I know it wasn’t really their pleasure to feed me.

“It’s been a pleasure getting your food, sir, I really love working around friers and screaming children. Don’t thank me, you’re not allowed to be thankful – it was my pleasure. I enjoyed it so much that it freaks me out that you said, ‘Thanks.’”

…Maybe that is a bit much but, today after receiving my chicken strips and once again hearing the obligatory ‘My Pleasure’ from the girl who looks an eerie amount like the receptionist from the office (not Pam but the new one, Erin, I think?) I started thinking to myself;

“Self, maybe there is a way you can thank them – without saying thank you and maybe even creating a nice awkward moment between you and them.” (I think to myself a lot).

So, after discussing with a colleague as we left we came up with a few options.

1. No words, smile and wink. That’s right, just smile really big – and wink like the two of you share an intensely hilarious secret. (this works especially well for the awkward qualification if you’re bad at winking)
2. Exclamative remarks. ‘Excellent!’ ‘Super!’ ‘Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!’ or even make your own up, that would for sure throw them off. The whole goal here is to leave it where they have nothing to say in return, after all.
3. Don’t thank, compliment. As they hand you your most assuredly delicious meal look them dead in the eye and pay them a compliment. ‘Hey, you guys are really doing a great job here, extra points for speed – and I saw you fill that lemonade while simultaneously over-excitedly greeting the newcomers into your establishment, really, kudos.’ The idea here is to once again get it where they can’t really say my pleasure – but maybe even make them say ‘Thanks.’ – And you better not forget, if they say ‘Thanks,’ you MUST say my pleasure… then disappear with your food items before they can react.
4. Evangelize. Use your connecting moment to try and tell them about God. I mean, odds are Christians if they work there – so they won’t really get mad at you and you still get your points for trying to witness – and hey, you may even get a phone number out of the deal. (This is almost like witnessing to someone in the spiritual section at Barnes & Noble.)
5. Silent Treatment. Don’t speak, treat this place like the Soup Nazi line, take your food and move on, don’t ask for anything extra just accept the fact that it’s good and go enjoy it.

Really you’re doing them a favor by not making them say this to you, you’re helping them to get past some false pretenses – and I think that’s what we’re all about – being real. I’m pretty sure Jesus never said ‘My Pleasure’ after feeding the 5000… (Bad example, it probably was His pleasure…)

Anyway, those are just a few ideas we came up with after eating – do you have any other ideas to thank them without thanking them?

Or am I the only person who finds it odd that they always say ‘My Pleasure’?

Here is something that God has been showing me lately.

As Jesus said, he came to give us life. (John 10)

If Jesus came to die so we could live, assumedly, life is a rather important thing? Then we need Him to do that, live. Both good theological thoughts but not specifically where I’m going with this, just the root of it.

I got to thinking about life and how each of our lives consists in three main chunks; our past, our present, and our future (even if it is a short one.)

All my life in movies and such I’ve heard warnings about not living in the past. Example: Uncle Rico or the song Glory Days from Springsteen (yeah, I just mentioned ‘The Boss’) Moral: no one likes someone who is stuck in the past, reliving it over and over. This is a hindrance to moving on with life, or noticing what is around you and where God wants you. I’ve had phases where I’ve been caught up in the thought of past sin, how I could have done things differently or maybe how things *would have* gone had I not acted in that way. All of this is quite pointless to dwell on, what we can hope to do is learn from our past – this does not involve focusing on the past, simply using it as a tool to not make the same mistakes in the present.

So, I’m sure we all agree that living in the past is bad and, that we’ve all heard at some point a warning about living in the past.

Yet something has occurred to me recently that I’ve heard very few if any warnings about living so heavily in the future. Which is something I started to do, and have done so much of in my life – making plans about where I would be at whatever age and what I would do and so forth. Then I began to think about the book of James, specifically:

Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit–14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

- James 4:13 ESV

So, this I feel like is a pretty heavy handed warning against living or focusing too much in the future. Now, by no means do I think this means we shouldn’t make future plans but I do think it makes it pretty clear that we should be most heavily focused on where God has us right now. Sometimes following God’s prompting will involve something that seems to make sense for our future but may be for an entirely different purpose than we think. Example; I’m currently working multiple jobs and working on finishing my degree. I’ve met several non-believers in this stage who I’ve been able to share Christ with, and love on. People I may never have met if I weren’t working on something seemingly for my future… yet this is also something that I chose to do now, because it was where I felt God wanted me to be at this point.

If we make this our focus, living for God now, then I believe our futures will more closely hit where God wants us, then – even if it is a totally different ‘then’ than we had planned in the beginning. Because, we have no idea what the now will do to the then…

All throughout scripture the languages suggests this; submitting to God and others, dying to ourselves, acting as the church, loving people and so on – these are all ideas that are based around what we’re currently doing. All of these are actions, things to be doing, not to be done.

God longs for us to be following him. This is a lifelong action that involves constant growth and effort that should be ever present in our hearts and minds. If we begin to put so much effort into what we plan to be doing next then how will we ever see what God has for us now, the things that will lead us to the best future we have – one that is in Him and as He would have it?