Darn Carts

Have you ever gone to the grocery store and chosen a shopping cart that seems to have a mind of its own? This afternoon on my way home from the church, I thought I would stop by Kroger’s to pick up a few needed items. I walked in, got my shopping cart and began my journey through the store. However, the journey through the store was not turning out the way I had planned. My shopping cart was possessed. As I tried to push it down the aisle, it began to go where it wanted. Not where I wanted it to go.

As I made my way through the produce section, it would veer into other shopping carts, and each time I would say, “I am sorry, it seems I got a shopping cart with a mind of its own.” One lady, looked at me and smiled saying, “That’s ok, we all get those once in awhile.” As I began to turn down the cereal isle, it bumped into an end display of Pop-Tarts, knocking a dozen or more boxes off the display. I stopped to pick them up, as any courteous shopper would do, and there was that same lady just smiling at me. I immediately made my way down the aisle to get my box of Quaker Oatmeal Squares and headed to the other end of the store, to get the rest of the items on my list. I was on my way to get the last thing on my list, and as I was approaching the pimento cheese spread, the cart once again, went in the opposite direction from where I wanted it to go, bumping into another cart. Once again, I looked up to apologize and just my luck, it was the same lady I ran into in the produce section, the one who smiled at me when I ran into the pop-tart display. Before I could apologize again, she said, “Young man, most people would have went and got a different shopping cart, but it seems that thought never crossed your mind.” She was right. It never crossed my mind to go and get another cart.

Has something like that ever happened to you? Frustrating, isn’t it? It is a constant battle to get it to go where you want it to!

Welcome to the world of humanity. Both you and I can be so much like those headstrong shopping carts - going where we want, as opposed to where God desires! We often forget that when we confessed Jesus Christ as the Son of the Living God and accepted him as our personal savior, we began a new chapter in our life, one where we would be working with God and not against Him.

In what ways are you like that shopping cart? What are the areas in your life that you are going in a different direction than the one God is steering you? I cannot answer that question for you, but I can tell you that when you submit total control of your life to Christ, you will find absolute freedom, total fulfillment, and incredible blessing. Let me challenge you today, not to be like that stubborn shopping cart with a mind of its own, but to develop a mind of Christ and be able to say God as Jesus did in Matthew 26: 39 – “But do what you want, and not what I want."