Teabags and Popcorn!

So, I was eating popcorn yesterday and drinking a fruit tea and I started wondering what makes a popcorn pop! (As you do). With a little help from Google, I found out that inside the kernel, the hard shell, there is a little bit of moisture and when it heats up inside, it turns to steam and as you keep heating it up, the pressure from the steam builds and builds until it cracks open the hard exterior and makes a yummy snack.

And then I thought about my teabag (I do promise there will be a spiritual application to this, not just information on my food and drink habits).  The label had come off the teabag, so I didn't know exactly what flavour it was, until I poured on the boiling water and tasted it!

As promised... the spiritual bit!  We are like teabags and popcorn!  This is a deep spiritual truth!  Really it is!  Read on and I'll explain why!

Firstly we are like popcorn because when heated up, whatever we stir up inside us will burst out. 

We're also like teabags too.  We don't always know what's inside of us until we are put in hot water, and the flavour comes out.

Anyone can stir up the flesh and we all know what that looks like when it explodes!!  It's messy.  We can stir up the flesh by meditating on offence, gossip, injustices, and all the negative stuff around.  We can also stir up the flesh in fear, worrying and anger.

Being a Christian means, that we have the opportunity to chose what we stir up. We can stir up the Holy Spirit in us instead of the flesh. As we fast, pray, worship and study God's word, the Holy Spirit will break through our carnal shell (like the kernel) and come out in our every day lives.  We can stir up what God as put in us (See 2 Tim 1:6).

When we do that, like the the tea-bag, when 'hot water' comes (trials and tribulation) the 'flavour' that comes out of us will be the sweetness of Jesus, the love of God, the peace that passes understanding and the joy of the Lord, not the messy rubbish of the flesh.

This all actually reminds me of Jehoshaphat. He was King of Jerusalem and served the Lord.  Two armies rose up against him and it says in  2 Chronicles 20:3 (KJV)

And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

And he prayed this prayer Verses 6-12 (MSG)

O GOD, God of our ancestors, are you not God in heaven above and ruler of all kingdoms below? You hold all power and might in your fist—no one stands a chance against you! And didn't you make the natives of this land leave as you brought your people Israel in, turning it over permanently to your people Israel, the descendants of Abraham your friend? They have lived here and built a holy house of worship to honour you, saying "When the worst happens—whether war or flood or disease or famine—and we take our place before this Temple (we know you are personally present in this place!) and pray out our pain and trouble, we know that you will listen and give victory."
And now it's happened: men from Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir have shown up. You didn't let Israel touch them when we got here at first—we detoured around them and didn't lay a hand on them. And now they've come to kick us out of the country you gave us. O dear God, won't you take care of them? We're helpless before this vandal horde ready to attack us. We don't know what to do; we're looking to you.

(This is him stirring up the Spirit OT style).

The Word of the Lord comes to them to say go out and you won't have to do anything!!  So they go and and do exactly what the Lord said and they triumph without lifting a finger.  It's a great story if you haven't read the whole thing, but the point is Jehoshaphat was seeking God.  In a time of great trouble what came out of him was faith in the word of the Lord!  Popcorn and teabags! 

So, today my encouragement to you is be like popcorn - stir up the Spirit within you.  Pray in tongues, worship God and let Him burst out of you in every situation.