The Hidden Things

Most of you moms and wives can probably relate to this on some level.  Your husband or kids don't like a certain food so you "hide" it into your cooking.  This works quite well as long as it remains "hidden."

For example I had some skim milk.  Now my kids and husband don't like skim milk, but I use it in my protein shakes.  I had a couple of gallons extra so was trying to figure out how to get them to drink it.  I ended up pouring half of it into their 2% jug of milk.  No one said anything, so each time their jug got halfway empty, I'd put more of the skim into it.  Eventually of course their milk was 100% skim, and no one said ONE word about it.  One morning I didn't catch the jug labeled 2% (that was actually skim) before the kids emptied it and threw it away.  So my son pulls out the only remaining jug that was labeled "skim."  He looked at it and looked at me and said, "Mom, how come you have skim, you know we don't drink that."  I couldn't tell him that for two weeks he had been drinking skim milk without it giving away my secret.  But it was amazing to me how they drank it fine, UNTIL they saw the label.

This has happened many times.  There have been times my husband has complimented me on dinner, only to later look in the trash can and see the empty cartons for low fat sour cream or reduced fat condensed soup and say, "I knew something tasted different about that!"

One lesson this teaches us is the power of suggestion.  By simply thinking that something was one way, they believed it was that way.  Kind of like the concept with PowerBands.  (see my blog entry on that)  Our minds are a powerful thing and the power of suggestion can be very strong.

The second lesson we can learn is hide all your empty containers when cooking with low fat, low sodium, low sugar, low anything foods.  LOL

More seriously though, we can learn how easily we can fall for the "hidden things" that are presented to us each day.  Things like lies wrapped in the guise of good intentions.  Satan knows we won't guzzle that watered down drink knowingly, but if he can put it in a better looking container, there is a much better chance we will "drink" it.  This is where the importance of knowing God's Word for yourself lies and in having friends that will help lovingly guide and point out those hidden things in our lives.  Sometimes it is hidden so well that it takes someone else pointing out the true contents to us.  Is that volunteer work really pride in disguise?  Does the fact that "everyone does it" make it right?  Is that prayer request gossip in disguise?  Is your excuse of needing some time to yourself really an excuse of wallowing in your own little pity party?

Think about this week, what things in your life might be hidden and put there in disguise, and you are unknowingly accepting it?

"Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep, but are really wolves that will tear you apart." Matthew 7:15 (NLT)