What I Learned at Taco Bell

So I'm house sitting for some dear friends for the next few days...ok, dog sitting actually. "Irish setter sitting" if you want to be exact. Strange thing is, on my way to their house to keep Maggie company, I had this craving for Taco Bell.

(I never knew people could crave Taco Bell, either.)

So I'm hoping for just something in the realm of a "decent Taco Bell experience" and, at first, all is going well. The line was short. They didn't mess up my order and when she handed me my small drink cup I thought I was home free.

And there I spotted it, the tea dispenser.

Iced tea in a Taco Bell? Awesome. Because Pepsi is not the choice of my generation as far as I'm concerned. So I walked over to the 5-gallon stainless steel fountain of Tetley, pulled the dispenser and a few drops of tea seeped out. Ah, you gotta be kidding me. I'll just inform the people at the counter that the tea container is empty and everything will be ok.

Now, catch this...when I told the lady behind the counter about the tea being empty, honest to goodness, this is what she said, "Oh, we keep it empty. No one drinks the tea, so we never fill it. We keep it all behind the counter."

Whah? Huh? Wait a second, "Yeah, we've got tea...heck, we even put out a 5-gallon tea dispenser out there to show people we have tea, but it's empty. It's all right here behind the counter."

Words I could utter around a child escaped me at that point, although the term "height of stupidity" crept in. And as I was rebuking the masterminds at Taco Bell for this little piece of brilliance (in my head) I said to myself, "Why have it out there if no one is using it?"

Right then, I felt God saying, "You mean like you do with your Bible?"

Wow. I felt crushed and embarrassed all in the same moment. Like I had pulled back a giant rubber band of judgement at these people and it ended up snapping me in the mouth instead.

Suddenly, I was in the same class of "mastermind" as the people at Taco Bell. Talk about humiliating. And this is from a guy who in high school carried one of those little Gideon pocket-sized Bibles with him in his back pocket. At first, people thought it was a little odd, but within a couple months 4-5 other people started doing the same thing. And then people started coming to us for advice, talk about what was on their mind. Cool stuff.

Yet now my Bible just sits there waiting for the weekend to be used. But not anymore.

So here's my challenge to myself and you as well. If you don't have one, grab a small travel size New Testiment and carry it with you. Put it in your satchel, your Coke holder, your cargo shorts side pocket, whatever. And when you're standing in line at the grocery store, at an appointment or waiting for friends to join you at a restaurant, read it. Put a small pencil with it so you can make notes in it too. Underline passages that really inspire you. Read it. Know it. And see what happens. To you and to those around you.

Because, just like the tea dispenser, the Bible won't do much good just sitting there. It needs to be used, to quench your thirst with something far better than iced tea - with the living word of Christ.