A man that I look up to a lot, who is a missionary to Bolivia, once told me a story about his desperate hunt for some tootsie rolls. One day he got a fierce craving for this hard/chewy/chocolatey treat (I'm actually not a fan). So he searched all day in every marketplace he could think of for them. The more he searched the more irritated he became. "Come on God", he thought "I do all this work for you, leave my family, give my free time, give my money, give my life, sacrifice sacrifice, sacrifice out the wazoo, do everything you tell me to do AND ALL I WANT ARE SOME DANGUM" TOOTSIE ROLLS!!!! By the time he got home that afternoon he was in quite a frenzy and quite candyless. Basically he was in one of those moods that everyone else knows to walk a safe distance around. His wife walked right up to him, though, gave him a hug and said "Hey babe, we got some mail today. There's a package for you." Still in a funk he opened it up and I'm sure you can guess what was inside...Tootsie rolls. Someone mailed him a whole heapin' box of them. Of course, he felt like a complete cotton headed ninny muggins and apologized.
I thought of his story today as I had worked myself up into a cotton headed ninny muggins frenzy of my own. I was competely irritated over dumb stuff,small stuff. When I thought of this story I remembered I don't need to feel like I'm entitled to have God give me stuff because of the things I do for him. He's the one that's entitled to have me do stuff because of who He is and everything He's given to me. Instead of searching wildly for the things I'm after I'd rather just keep searching after him. I also know that He's an amazingly generous God, who has a special way of giving out tootsie rolls.
