“Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us” was part of an advertising campaign many years ago by Burger King. (If you’re my age, you could possibly still sing those line.) Burger King wanted us to have our hamburger the way we wanted it. Have it your way! In some ways, Burger King opened a Pandora’s Box. We now want everything our way. Why not? We pay the bill.
Along the way this “have my way” attitude has slid into our lives. We notice it in the property management business. A recent example: temperature issues inside an office are always an issue. Eighty degrees is hot for some and for some it’s the ideal temperature. Last week we had an internal temperature issue with a small office. One woman said she was cold but the other thought the temperature was fine. We carry temperature guns which show us the temperature exactly where a person sits. The temperature read 73 degrees at this woman’s chair. She said “73 degrees means nothing to me; I’m cold.” No matter what the truth was, she was cold. I want my burger my way and you better do something about it. (I wanted to say, “How about putting on a sweater” but I thought better.)
Facts (73 degrees) mean nothing anymore. I’m cold and you better make my burger my way. We’ve lost our adaptability; we’ve lost our understanding of the concept of common good (i.e. if it’s 73 degrees and I am cold but everyone else is comfortable, I’ll put on a sweater).
We can watch any kind of TV anytime we want thanks to TIVO. We can mix and match our music; we program our list of favorites. Isn’t life great? We can have it all our way.
We like our religion our way too. The church music must be our favorite. We really want to believe what we want to believe. We want to be the ultimate authority. We want our burger “my way”.
When we make ourselves the ultimate authority, we are in deep trouble. We make ourselves god. “You shall have no other God’s before me.” Concerning these issues, we’d better be very careful. It’s ok to have our burgers our way but not our faith. The Lord He is God. We’re not. The final authority is God’s word, not what we think or want.
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1 comment:
Look, I'll have a little of 1 Corinthians 13; a smidgen of John 3; a heaping helping of Psalm 23 but none of Romans 9 for me. Can't take too much of that heavy election stuff.
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