Can you remember the first time you ever drank coffee? (For those of you who are not coffee-drinkers, feel free to doze for a moment.) Did you like it? Did you "doctor it up" so that it was palatable? For most folks, coffee is an acquired taste. Most of us learned to drink it. Whatever our reason was--it was what was around all the time, everyone in our family drank it, it was free and Cokes were not--whatever the reason, we made a conscious decision to drink coffee.I firmly believe that my dad decided to like black walnut ice cream because my brother and I didn't like it and wouldn’t eat it.
My grandparents grew up during the Great Depression. I've mentioned that my mom was one of twelve kids. My mom tells about how her mother would fry chicken for supper and everyone else would eat and the only thing left would be the neck, so she (my grandmother) always said that she preferred the neck. My grandmother decided in her heart that she would eat the chicken neck so that her family could eat the more premium pieces.
How many of us will just go ahead and eat the heel from a loaf of sandwich bread because we know that no one else will eat it? Parents decide in their hearts to go ahead and eat the heel on the loaf of bread so that their kids can have the more premium slices.
There's a whole lot involved when deciding something in your heart.
In the movie City Slickers, Curly (the cattleman) has this heart-to-heart talk with Mitch (the character played by Billy Crystal). Curly tells him what the secret of life is-–it’s "one thing." When Mitch asks him what the one thing is, Curly tells him that every person has to figure it out for themselves. The "one thing" for us is what we have decided in our heart.
Think about some of the things you have decided in your heart and then acted on.
In Acts 4, Barnabas sold a piece of land and gave the proceeds to the apostles in Jerusalem so that no Christian there would have to be in need. He decided in his heart to be actively compassionate and generous. I know that there are so many opportunities for me to be actively compassionate and generous that I blow past without even recognizing them. But I’m trying. I’m trying to do better. I’m trying to pay attention.
- Sheree Yasko Hill
