Some decisions are easy to make – a door is clearly open or closed and we must simply respond accordingly. But occasionally it’s hard to consider something different, especially when there’s nothing inherently wrong with what we’re currently doing. It seems God might disrupt our comfort to motivate change in these moments.
Spitting in one’s soup makes a situation less appetizing and motivates change. What was once appealing now becomes undesirable. Perhaps one dramatic example was the plagues of Egypt. With each plague God made the Israelites presence in Egypt less desirable until Pharaoh finally let them go.
Closer to home, this might look like making dynamics at work increasingly unfavorable. While it’s a stable job, changes in leadership or organizational policies might sour affections toward our position. On the one hand, we can stay and continue to eat this soup. But with each passing day it becomes more and more unsavory. And we discover a stronger motivation to change directions once we realize what we’re eating.
Of course, this might play out in any number of situations. For instance, eventually setting harder boundaries with family members who take advantage of us, eliminating junk food as our health problems increase, or no longer playing the victim as we continue to see our life spiral downward.
Whatever it looks like, we can continue with the status quo, but this becomes increasingly harder to do as the cost of this path is exposed. As such, while there is not a closed door per se, it becomes clear it’s time to head in a new direction. And it becomes fear and not a lack of clarity that holds us back otherwise.
In the end, pay attention when situations start to sour. This might be God’s way of getting your attention – spitting in your soup as it were, and motivating you to change.
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
