If given the option, would you rather have multiple choices or only a “this or that”?

Growing up, our small beach town had this one of a kind blue and pink ice cream shop. It was only open in the summer months making demand high despite the prices. When you walked through the door of Oinks Dutch Treat, your senses were on overload. You could smell homemade waffle cones on the griddle. Your eyes couldn’t stop jumping around to look at the thousands of pig pictures, toys, signs, and figurines lining the rectangular building. If you made the horrible decision to arrive after 6 pm, you also would feel the “ticket” between your fingers as the staff would belt out numbers. Inevitably someone would call out “Bingo!” as if it had not already been said countless times within the hour. Once your number was called and you finally made it to the large glass containers housing the 58 flavors of ice cream, one’s anxiety would kick in. Despite waiting well over 30 minutes for ice cream, there would always be a last minute flavor change. How does one choose when there are so many good options?

Life is a lot like ice cream

If you taste it, it melts but if you waste it, it will also melt.

So taste your life ‘n enjoy yourself.

In December of 2020, my husband and I were making our first official delivery of books to Duke University Medical Center. The night before the big delivery we found an ice cream shop in Durham that had this sign on the wall. I snapped a picture. Getting to this point in time involved a lot of choices. Some of them I wasted, but finally I was tasting the beauty of giving HOPE to other parents after child loss. 

Life IS like ice cream. We are constantly surrounded by choices. Sometimes it is a mint chip or cookie dough kind of day, but often we are standing in the aisle of the grocery store peering into the freezer of a thousand options. 

Do we choose this or that; 
Right or wrong; 
To love or not; 
To stay or leave; 
To be loyal or betray. 

John 13 1 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

I don’t do feet. I don’t even like clean feet. Jesus is washing the feet of men who have traveled on dirt roads countless miles. The dirt, the blisters, the toenails, the smell. He got down to their feet level and washed them. A sacrifice and an example of servitude to a group of men who didn’t even understand it and probably some didn’t even appreciate it. Are you thinking about your kids right now? Yeah, me too. 

10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

18 “I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned[a] against me.’[b]

19 “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am. 20 Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”

21 After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”

22 His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. 23 One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. 24 Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”

25 Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”

26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” 28 But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. 29 Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. 30 As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.

Would you be willing to clean the feet of someone who was going to betray you? Jesus had a choice. He didn’t have to clean the feet of Judas, but He did. In doing so, He knew that Judas ultimately still had a choice. He didn’t have to betray Jesus, but he did. 

Jesus to this day gives us choice:
To sin or not
To forgive or hold grudges
To serve or disregard
To respect or despise
To choose Jesus or not.

Even when we do not choose what is right, good, or God; He still chooses us. 

If He were physically next to you, He would still choose to wash your feet. That my friend, is music to my ears and it is called grace.