Poptart Imposters

I love Poptarts. My favorites are strawberry, which I generally bring to class every day, and fudge. When I went shopping yesterday I just felt like getting poptarts. The thing is, poptarts are expensive. You pay a lot for a brand name when the generic are considerably cheaper. So I bought a big pack of strawberry, but I grabbed a generic chocolate fudge. I mean, on the outside, they looked the same. Both boxy, both with pictures of poptarts.

This morning I settle down to have a delicious poptart before I go to work. I went with the fudge kind since it’s been a while since I’ve had one. The foil looked the same, bright and shiny. They had frosting with little sprinkles. I was imagining that they would taste, well, like a poptart. You can imagine my dismay when they did not.

They were awful! I had to wash it down with extra milk and brush my teeth for 5 minutes. Still, I did something incredibly ridiculous. I kept eating them. I knew that this counterfeit was disgusting to me, and yet I continued to shove it down my gullet. For some reason, I thought this nasty-tart would satisfy me. It didn’t.

This is such a simple story of mixing the real thing with the counterfeit. It’s easily cleared up by knowing never to get the impostor again; that the real thing is worth the sacrifice. The thing is, I am guilty of doing this all the time. No, not buying generic poptarts; filling my life with generic gods.

I know what the real God is to me. I know how His love fills me and makes me whole and makes me think and feel. And yet, I consistently try to replace Him with something that is not satisfying. And when I realize that what I’m trying to fill my life with is gross, I come back to Him asking Him to take this horrible taste out of my mouth. I can only imagine He puts up with my ridiculousness because He loves me terribly so. He cleans me up and says, “So what have we learned today, Beloved?”
I feel like that kid staring up at his dad when I answer, “Not to replace you with something else.”
“That’s right. And are we going to do this again?”
“No way!” I say.
I can imagine God smiling bittersweetly because my intentions are sincere, but He knows I’ll fail again.

From the outside, a lot of things can look just as good as the Original. But they are no where near the Original. They can look like it on the outside, but when you take that first bite, you know that it’s not. Let’s do ourselves a favor. When we take that first bite, let’s not keep eating, trying to deceive ourselves into thinking it will satisfy us. Let’s throw it away and agree to not buy the generics. The Original is worth the sacrifice.

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