Tostitos!!!

[Tom's Blog] Recently I found myself in a small store stocked with American foods unseen and unsampled by me in 11 months; Wow, it was like being in paradise – with one exception: I didn’t have sufficient money at that time to purchase all the goodies my taste buds desired and the store was closing in a few minutes! What to do? What items would be most desirable and fulfilling and stay within the limited money available? One well thought out item that I purchased, at the sacrifice of Jiff Peanut Butter and chocolate chips, was a bag of ‘Tostitos’ tortilla chips.

They ‘called’ to me: “buy me, you will love my delicious flavor and crunchy goodness”. So I did. I brought them home, eager to munch on them, and placed them on the shelf.

The bag sat there for two weeks before it was opened.

How many times in life do we have a compelling urge to really want something that requires a large personal sacrifice, or comes at a high cost, only to set it aside on the shelf where it gets an occasional glance and little recognition? Then, by the time we get around to doing something with it, that item has lost its ‘flavor’ and we wonder: what did I see in that thing in the first place? We want something so badly, and when we finally get it, we realize it has no value. We chase after something and find it unfulfilling.

This is reminiscent of Matthew 6:19-21: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through not steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Hind sight for me would indicate my time would have been better spent making a price list of each desirable item and returning at a later date with sufficient money to make rational purchases. But the chips kept calling out to me… And the bugs aren’t going to devour them: When I finally got around to them, I ate them in less than three days!