Crunchy

by DanWolgemuth on August 29, 2014

On a recent trip to the mountains, Mary and I popped into a local grocery store to replenish our inventory of peanut butter. PB&J sandwiches are a mountain staple when hiking or biking.

As we walked the aisle I noted that it looked like the small market only had crunchy peanut butter. I looked at Mary and said, “That doesn’t work since you don’t like crunchy peanut butter.”

With complete surprise Mary looked back at me and replied, “No, you’re the one that doesn’t like crunchy. ”

“No”, I volleyed back, “I grew up on crunchy.”

Then silence as something stunning occurred to both of us in perfect synchronization. Over the course of 36 years of marriage and three years of dating (that certainly included peanut butter intervals), we had carefully crafted assumptions about each other that weren’t true.

Our ill-informed perspective shaped our behavior, and likely, the entire peanut butter marketplace for nearly four decades. At this point I’ve not informed our three children of this discovery as I worry about how they will react to this transformational shift in our culinary behavior. They have been shaped and molded with creamy as a cornerstone. Counseling may be in order.

Even in the most intimate relationships, uninformed, and unexplored assumptions shape our behaviors. We act, and live, and believe a certain way, not because we know the facts, but because we assume we know the facts. Our assumptions become our reality. And over time, our reality becomes our absolute.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) (John 4:7-9 ESV)

How is it…?

I thought I knew. I was sure that I knew!

Long standing assumptions don’t evolve into truth. Truth alone is truth.

It’s crunchy that now sits on our pantry shelf, and it’s a healthy dose of humility that now confronts other, far more important assumptions that I’ve made.

Maybe, just maybe, God used a jar of peanut butter to rock my world.

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