You may well wonder what on earth chewing gum could teach us about life. (see November 6, 2010 for my initial musings) Life is short and then you die. Chewing gum gets chewed up quickly and then discarded, often carelessly. Whatever pleasure it may have provided is soon forgotten. It is a question of comparisons, of relativity. I could eat a whole packet of Extra but still feel infinitely more satisfied with a baked dinner. Life lesson #4: in crude terms life is packet of chewing gum whereas Heaven will be a banquet.
Is the chewing gum fulfilling its calling in life? After the initial burst of flavour it gives, chewing gum soon becomes a taker; the more you chew the harder you have to chew. Someone should invent a slow release chewing gum. That would be a better, more balanced approached which would prevent the chewing gum suffering burnout. Life lesson #5:Godly people are nothing like chewing gum in this regard. In fact the harder life chews them, the more flavour they release, and they don't get hard or become hard work for others. God's power is more than sufficient to sustain the righteous. Love doesn't get tired.
Life lesson #6: Even the humblest, most mundane things in the world, like chewing gum for example, can be used by God to teach an open minded soul who is listening. Are you listening?
Your 'parable of the chewing gum' reminded me of what Jesus said to the woman at the well - John 4:13, 14: Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks water, from this well, will need more water later. Whoever drinks my water will never need more. My water will be like a stream that gives *eternal life’.
ReplyDeleteIt's like - whoever chews extra will need to keep adding postions to renew the flavour, but the godly person has a source of flavour that is self-renewing. he he - they will be chewing eternally.
You could also relate this analogy to psalm one and talk about chewing on God's word.
Oh (I'm on a role now) - the groomsmen - half of them took an extra packet of extra because they knew that the groom could be a while in coming. The really spiritual ones brought hubba bubba though. The disciples were unsure what this meant so, later on, in a quiet moment, they asked Jesus about it. He explained that, first of all, hubba bubba has a stronger flavour, but, more importantly, you can blow bubbles with bubble gum, whereas, as you've been pointing out in your blog, after chewing gum has lost it's flavour, who can make it flavoured again? - it is only good for throwing out. Unlike salt that has lost its flavour, it's not even good for trampeling under foot. It's extremely annoying when you trample it under foot. So dispose of it thoughtfully.