It was just a finger.  One little pointer finger, but it was placed in the middle of MY omelet at a restaurant, and it turned my appetite sour!  Let me explain.

It was late at night and my husband and some friends and I had been out for the evening.  It was too late for common restaurants to be open, so we stopped at what I believe was a Waffle House, or that sort of place that’s open all night.

When we got there, our group overwhelmed the tiny establishment, so they called for reinforcements to help wait tables.  I’m not sure where our waitress came from, but she wasn’t dressed the part of a server, but more like someone who was in charge of unloading the truck or cleaning out the dumpster out back.  She wore a big, baggy sweatshirt and her hands and nails looked like it had been a long time since they’d been washed or manicured.  “At least she’s not touching our food,” we all  thought.

When the food was brought to the table, it seems that myself and someone else had both ordered an omelet.  One was a ham omelet and one just cheese.  “I had the ham omelet,” I managed to say, hoping her thumb wouldn’t enter the safety zone of my food as she set the plate down.  A puzzled look fell across her face as she looked at the two plates containing the omelets.  Then to my horror, she stuck one of her fingers into the folded flap of my omelet to make sure it was the one containing the ham!  “Yep, this one’s yours!” she said as she set the now contaminated eggs before me. That one finger, such a little thing, compared to a whole hand, but it was all that was needed to ruin the meal.

Do you ever think about the one lie you told to avoid an awkward situation, or the gossip tidbit you shared, or the small bitterness towards a co-worker, and think “It’s just a small thing.  It’s dismissed because everyone talks about others at one time or another, or it’s understandable that we’d lie if we were in that situation!  But, like my omelet, by that One Little Thing you have been defiled by that sin.  Now when you go to pray and seek God’s direction or wisdom or leadership or provision you wonder why it seems that heaven is shut up or that your requests fall on God’s ears as it would a mute man.  We feel that way because that’s exactly what happens when there is one little sin in our heart.  It separates us from God.

The prayer of the upright is His delight.  Proverbs 15:8

If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.Psalm 16:18

You’re probably wondering if I ate the omelet.  I cut that whole part off, and I think I even removed it from my plate, then I ate what was left.  In a MUCH higher sense, when we confess our sin, God removes it from us and then He can use us.  He can hear and answer our prayer now that the defilement has been “cut off.”

Don’t let one little thing keep you from being in close fellowship with the Lord.  If He points out something in your life, get it right with the one you sinned against, and with Him.  It’s then that your spiritual appetite will be renewed!

I’ve never ordered an omelet since then that I didn’t think of that experience!  May we be as mindful of the displeasure of our sin!

With love,