Skip to main content

Both Sides Now


It wasn’t the basis for a law suit, but the disappointment was still there.  Every time I made one and took it out, it just didn’t look like the one that was pictured on the box.  It sure tasted good though, every time, but it just didn’t meet the look-like expectations.

We’re talking waffles here.  You know the waffles with the deep indentions where the butter and syrup almost seem to disappear.  Every time I mixed up the batter, put the batter in the waffle maker and took it out when it was done, well, it just didn’t look like the waffle in the picture on the waffle maker box.  But it sure tasted good.

Then one day I took the waffle out and, for some reason, flipped it over as I put it on my plate.  Wow!  What do you know!  The waffle looked just like the one pictured on the waffle maker box!  Funny thing about waffles and most waffle makers, a different pattern is created on each side of the waffle as the batter is being cooked.

It all reminds me of my need to be regularly taught the Word of God.

Wait!  Waffles remind me of that?  How so?   With the waffles from my waffle maker, if you look at one side over and over again, you miss out on seeing what might be on the other side.  So it is when I’m taught the Word of God.  Someone else might bring a perspective or a view that I may have not noticed before.  It’s kind of like flipping something over and seeing it from a different angle. 

Speaking of seeing something, the main focus of the Word of God is Jesus.  We are, in fact, encouraged to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2).  So when I see Jesus from a different angle, I sometimes see aspects of His person that I may not have noticed before. 

I’ve seen my waffles from both sides now.  With Jesus, we can never exhaust all the views we could have of Him but we can sure spend a lifetime trying!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Excel Still More!

To excel, according to some of the meanings from a few dictionaries, is to surpass others, do extremely well, outdo, do something better than anyone else. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, we find the phrase “excel still more”.   It prompts the question:  if we are already doing something better than anyone else, why would we be encouraged to do even more? Perhaps it would be helpful to see the wording that other translations use for “excel still more” to see why we would be encouraged to do so.  Here is a sampling: • abound more and more • to keep doing so more and more • but try even harder • live that way more and more. • that you progress even more. • that you increase more and more in how you ought to walk Maybe it would also be helpful to see some other verses where the word “excel” is used: “Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which when translated means Dorcas); this woman was excelling in acts of kindness and charity which she did habitually.”...

Value Proposition

Value proposition:  it’s a marketing statement that summarizes why a consumer should buy a product or use a service.  It should clearly and concisely communicate what customers can gain from selecting a particular brand over that of its competitors. In a value proposition, you don’t want your product to be viewed as being worth less than what your competitors offer.   But even worse, in a bit of a quirk of how letters and spaces can fall, if you take out the space between “worth” and “less”, you get “worthless”, which means something of no value.   If that word is used in conjunction with how your product is viewed by customers, it’s a word that will likely kill your brand. In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul, in a sense, communicated some value propositions. In chapter three, he starts off with describing the value of some things that many considered as extremely valuable in that day and age.   They had to do with status and achievement in the reli...

Outrun the What?

“Outrun the rays”!  It’s a phrase I noticed on a billboard.  I think it’s a public service type campaign.  The intent, I assume, is to get people out of the harmful rays of the sun that can cause things like skin cancer.  But you really can’t outrun the rays, they travel at about 186,282 miles per second! Yet the campaign has a certain appeal to it.   “Outrun” sounds a lot like a competition and maybe it gets the competitive juices going for some.   Yet, try as you may, you still can’t outrun the rays, but you can implement strategies to avoid them.   And most of those strategies have a simple foundational aspect to them; you avoid the rays by finding some type of covering. Strategies for covering up from the rays include being in shaded areas, putting on clothing that blocks the rays or putting on sun screen. While the sun’s rays can certainly cause significant physical harm and cover is essential to combat that, there are also areas of our live...