Karl's Journals
Living From the New Heart Jesus Gave You Enjoy The Ride Chips and Salsa It's No Mystery
Home Page

Chips and Salsa

I love chips and dip and most other kinds of Mexican food. At the Super Bowl party at our church this past year, one guy brought in his wife's recipe for Mexican salsa. The table outside the fellowship hall was covered with all kinds of great 'finger foods' and desserts including bags of chips and this incredible salsa. This salsa contained the perfect combination of flavor, along with a nice substantial 'kick' to finish off the experience. The table had several bags of opened chips in different locations around the table. Just as a side note. when my wife goes to a women's event at our church, she loads the car with baskets, flowers, vases, candles and other stuff that I don't know the words for. But at this Super Bowl feast you couldn't locate one 'bowl' for chips. no.. the chips remained in the same bags they arrived at the grocery store in. torn open and spread around the table.

When you think about it, what is the most important role of a chip in the dipping experience? Think about it. the most significant job of the chip is to serve as a 'vehicle' for the salsa. It now sounds strange, even to me, that God would bring to my mind a passage in John chapter 9 where Jesus asks the disciples about who sinned, concerning the man born blind, this man or his parents. Jesus answered neither; but that this man was the way he was so that the glory of God might be revealed. I'm thinking that the negative events in our lives are sometimes used to bring unbelievers to a saving knowledge of Jesus as savior. In the lives of believers, some negative circumstances are used to bring a Christian to the end of their own resources and attempts to 'cope' in the Christian life.

At Grace Ministries, we call this 'brokenness.' Brokenness is where our confidence in our resources, our self-discipline and our will power to do the will of God is broken, so that the believer would cease to live out of their own abilities and choose to trust on Jesus to live His life in and through them. In addition, Scripture in John 9 teaches us that some negative circumstances are not about the failure of the believer or anyone else, but instead, that some circumstances we encounter exist in order that the 'glory of God might be revealed.' You might be asking, "What about the chips and salsa?" As far as chips and salsa are concerned. it's all about the salsa! It's all about the glory of God being revealed. The events and circumstances of life (the chips) are real, but that our Father's intent is to reveal Himself right in the middle of those circumstances. Sometimes negative circumstances are not about 'who sinned,' but are a 'vehicle' for the glory of God.