Bugs for Breakfast...No More

"Mommy, there's ants in my baked oatmeal!"  Elijah spit out his breakfast and pushed his bowl away.

"No, those are not ants, it's just part of the oats..." I tried to convince him to keep eating, since I had just spent the last hour making the recipe and waiting for breakfast to be ready.  It was the best baked oatmeal I had ever made--maybe because I mashed 2 bananas into the recipe and then took it out at the perfect moment.  

I started picking at my own breakfast, watching little black things floating up to the surface of the milk. What ARE those things???  My own bowl became suspect, and I almost choked on the parts I had already swallowed.  AHHH....what a waste!

I went back into the kitchen to survey the oats.  Yep, there were bugs crawling around.  Well, at least the ones I ate were baked dead!  Some consolation.

As soon as I saw the bugs crawling, I remembered what my college professor, Ken Guenter, had taught us about the curses of Deuteronomy 28.  Isn't there something about bugs in there??  

15"However, if you do not obey the Lord your God...

17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed...

22 The Lord will strike you...

with blight and mildew,

which will plague you until you perish...

39  You will plant vineyards and cultivate them

but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes,

because worms will eat them."

Deuteronomy 28

Yes, Jesus was giving me another parable in life to teach me something about eternal things.  This passage is one of the curses that came in the Old Testament for not obeying God.  We still suffer the curse of sin today.  The bugs in my baked oatmeal are a picture of the curse of sin in our lives.  It's not like I messed up the recipe, it is just that the bugs ruined it.  

God did not make mistakes when He made the world.  In fact it was good.  But when we humans sinned we also brought the curse, which includes bugs for breakfast.

As I watch the bugs floating in my milk, I remember that I have sinned, and that is why my breakfast is ruined.  

As the black living things crawl around the oats scattered on my kitchen counter, I remember that "these things must happen...".   This is just another sign that we are still waiting for something better that is yet to come. 

"These things must happen first,

but the end will not come right away...

There will be...famines and pestilences in various places...

Luke 21.9 & 11

Jesus gives me bugs for breakfast to remind me to lift up my head.  This world is not all that there is.

"When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads,

because your redemption is drawing near."

Luke 21.28

"Mommy, will there be bugs in heaven?"  Only 4-years old, yet Malachi has such great theological questions!  We talked about eternity at breakfast: "No, Son, I don't think there will be bugs there.  It's a place where there's nothing bad, and bugs are bad."

"No longer will there be any curse..."

Revelation 22.3a

I had to scrape the baked oatmeal out of the pan, throw it in the trash, and start over again.  I had to make a new breakfast.  God cares about my breakfast; and He also cares about my eternity.  He is giving me a little parable at breakfast to remind me of the Gospel:  We sinned, He died and rose to redeem us from the curse of sin..  We must look to Him by faith and beyond the bugs, because He is going to make everything new...and there will be bugs for breakfast....no more!

"He who was seated on the throne said,

'I am making everything new!'"

Revelation 21.5a