No-Thank-You-Bite

Have you ever eaten a “No-thank-you-bite”?

You are eating with a friend. She offers you food, but you really don’t want to taste it. However, she looks at you with an enthusiastic smile, nudging the spoon toward your mouth.

You are eating at her favorite sushi restaurant (raw fish makes your stomach churn, and you’re there just for the teriyaki chicken) or she just made her award-winning quiche (you really don’t like eggs because the texture is slimy, but the bacon sure smells good). She is over-the-top eager for you taste the food even though you confess that you dislike it.

I do not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

You finally take the bite because you figure that her feelings are more important than your taste buds. You smile and tell her that it’s wonderfully made and admit that you can see why people would love it. . . .yet, (unlike the green eggs and ham) it is still not something you would eat again.

I’ve realized that God also gives us “No-thank-you bites."

I remember when I had just finished grocery shopping, and I drove past a local ministry. All of a sudden, I felt a passion to help this ministry. I knew the Holy Spirit was prompting me, but I had absolutely no idea how I would fit another thing onto my already bulging plate of to-dos.

I kept thinking to myself, “I’ve never been passionate about this type of ministry before.”

I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Okay, God. Just tell me what I need to do.”

I decided to make my spirit available for God to lead, and I went on about my day. That night I told my church home group that God prompted me to help out this ministry. After I finished telling my story, my friend’s eyes bulged out of their sockets. She told us a long narrative about how that ministry has been on her heart for years, but she has never taken the first step of faith to get involved.

The next morning, I picked up my friend, and we drove to the ministry to see if we could help out. My friend chatted away, got phone numbers and took charge of a particular need they had.

I just sat there realizing that God had just given me a “No-thank-you-bite.”

My friend went on to organize a beautiful giving campaign, and I tagged along offering encouragement. God used me to “taste” a ministry, so my friend could have an all-out dinner buffet. Isn’t God so cool!

Can you look back to a time that God gave you a “No-thank-you-bite”? What did it taste like?

“They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves” (Acts 27:36 NIV).