Praying for the Bread Truck, and Here “HE” comes!

“Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” Mark 14:38

I grew to detest that sound. It doesn’t matter what tune they play, it’s all the same-the sound quality is horrible, but the lure is irresistible. To make it worse, we lived on the corner of a loop, so we got him coming in, we got him going out, and we heard him go through the other loop behind us. I’m inside praying for a bread truck to swing by with free samples, and instead, HE shows up.

I think he had a hidden camera in my house. Seems like we were always scrounging pennies for gas, or bread, or something, and here he comes: The Pied Piper of Sugar. He’s trolling through, casting that audible bait, and the kids’ ears would perk up: The Ice Cream Man is Coming!

But that’s the way temptation works: it tempts you. The Tofu Truck would never have pulled me out of my air-conditioned living room. The Veggie Van? I’m not giving up my last $5.73 for frozen carrot juice! But an ice cream sandwich, melting so fast in the Florida heat that you have to lick the last half of it off your fingers? That’s some good stuff!

Trials aren’t just about dramatic and fiery tests of your will to live. Trials come in the form of day-to-day tests of what is right versus what feels good and what everybody around you seems to want you to do. Ice cream vs. bread isn’t a major trial for most of us (unless you’re down to your last $5.73), but sexual immorality, coarse language, gossip-these and other opportunities are always around us. “Everybody’s doing it; it’s not that bad; it’s fun; come on, live a little!” Have you heard any of those?

That’s why it is so important for us to focus on the basics of the Christian walk. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and the only prevention is to be paid up, prayed up, praised up, and focusing on the Bread at all times. Because somewhere, lurking around the corner, waiting to hit the music, is the Ice Cream Man, and he wants your bread money.
by John Garrod