Monday, August 4, 2008

Peanut Butter


One of my favorite questions to ask people I’m just getting to know is, “what’s the strangest job you’ve ever had?”  You’d be surprised at some of the responses.  They’ve included:

Military Surplus Vehicle Sandblaster

Drag Queen Dancer

(seriously…if someone tells you this, don’t laugh and ask if they're joking unless you know with 100% certainty that they are.  Let’s just say that the risk is the same as asking a stranger when her baby is due.  Just trust me on this).

Chicken Processing Plant Night Cleaning Crew

And my personal answer:

Mailroom Worker at a Podiatry Malpractice Insurance Agency.

I don’t know why, but people find that funny.  If you break it down, there’s nothing funny about working in a mailroom, there isn’t anything inherently amusing about insurance, and podiatry isn’t known for being the “stand-up comedian” of medical disciplines.  But put it all together, and you have a conversational show-stopper. 

MAN: “Nice weather we’ve been having.”

ME: “I once delivered internal mail at a podiatry malpractice insurance company.”

MAN:  “You don’t say!  Tell me more.”

I had this job when we first moved to Nashville and needed work.

I showed up the first day in a suit. 

I had soooooo much to learn. 

Anyway, since we had just moved, the music thing was still getting started and so we were pretty poor.  That’s why I ate peanut butter and jelly for a year. 

I’m not kidding. 

I had a PB&J for lunch, every day, for, at least, 365 days of my mailroom tenure.  Strangely I still like them.  In fact, as I’m typing, there’s one sitting on my desk. 

One thing about eating that many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is that you become a connoisseur of peanut butter.  Now, I already had some strong opinions about smashed peanuts.  It, actually, was the instigating factor in The Great Peanut Butter Wars of 1999. 

That was the year Laura and I got married.

Apparently, she followed commander Skippy and I was a solider for the Teddy Bear All-Natural camp. 

Men.  Let me give you some advice.  If your new bride goes to the store without you, and buys the wrong brand of ANYTHING…don’t turn to her and ask, “What’s this?”  I don’t care if she buys you the wrong kind of underwear and you have to wear itchy, cotton-poly-blend, briefs.  I promise you.  It will be better than asking that question. 

But I asked it. 

“Uh…..it’s peanut butter,” she said.

“No it’s not.  Isn’t it a prerequisite that ‘peanuts’ be on the list of ingredients if it’s supposed to be peanut butter?”

“My parents always got this.”

“I like the all-natural stuff.  It’s better for you.”

This went on for months until she finally saw the light…..and defected.

The problem, though, with all natural peanut butter is that you have to mix it.

They even have a warning on the jar to make sure you know that everything is still OK.  It reads, “Mix well.  Separation is normal.” 

Thank you for the reassurance.  I feel better now.

But when they say, “mix well” they really mean it. 

Anyone who has eaten all-natural peanut butter knows that you have to dig all the way to the bottom and make sure the oil gets down there.  Otherwise, a few weeks later you’ll wind up with this nasty, dried-out, peanut cement that’s impossible to spread on anything. 

The other day, as we were making the boys some PB&J, Laura and I got talking about someone in our lives who has never allowed God to work out the hard and painful stuff in their life.  And as I was mixing up a new jar of peanut butter I realized that what Jesus wants to do in our lives is exactly what I was doing at that moment.

I was digging down, digging deep and allowing the oil to work its way through everything so that it could be soft and “spreadable”…able to be poured out, not hard, and stuck to the jar. 

Some of the hardest times in my life have been when God took his spiritual kitchen knife and began to stir things up.  He’s not a “surfacy” kind of guy, so He dug deep.  Deep into the parts of my life that didn’t want to be touched.  He dug deep into wounds that I had held onto for years.  I wasn’t holding on to them because I liked being wounded, but because I was afraid of what the healing process, the process of allowing the oil of God to work its way in, would look like.  I think that’s a fear, common to a lot of people.  After all…in this analogy we ARE “all-natural”.  But, if I can be this direct, it’s not what God wants for us.  We were made to have God intimately know us, and He longs to bring freedom to the hard and hurt places of our lives. You see, unlike the peanut butter, where “separation is normal”, our separation is not normal.  But this side of sin, we’re a separated people.  We’re separated from God, separated from each other, and even separated and broken on the inside.  So we need God to stir us.  We need to let Him mix Himself into every corner of these “jars” we call our lives. And when we do, we will truly understand what God says to us through the prophet Isaiah:

“(God)…comforts all who mourn, and provides for those who grieve…and bestows on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.  They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.”

 

 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I worked for a few years cutting off fish heads. Had a few lessons through that experience, but I am with you.

Thanks for the comments the other day.

Craig said...

Thanks for that Adam. I needed to hear that this morning.

~Craig

Anonymous said...

From now on when I am mixing my all natural peanut butter I will be reminded of this great illustration of how God is lovingly working in my life. Thanks Adam!