Ain’t Too Proud To Beg

Yesterday afternoon I received a text that every man dreams of receiving from his wife:

“Free Chick Fil A sandwich with a worship guide. Bring some home and we’ll go there for dinner.”

Yay-yuh. I’m a big fan of Christian Chicken, so I walked out to my assistant’s desk to grab the leftover worship guides from Sunday. Alas, they had already been recycled. I wandered to the desks of every other campus admin. Recycled. Recycled. Recycled. Darn you, Al Gore!

So there I was, the pastor of a megachurch that prints thousands upon thousands of worship guides every week, and I couldn’t scrounge up even one for a free piece of sanctifried poultry. (Did you see what I did there?)

I sprinted up to the auditorium, hoping against hope that I’d find a few left. And while the custodial team hadn’t yet made their rounds, our First Impressions clean up team had swept the auditorium at the end of Sunday’s service. Darn you, attention-to-detail First Impressions Team!

And yet, throughout the auditorium I found remnants of worship guides. One on a chair. Two on the floor. Hiding. Taunting. Waiting. And by the time it was all over, I found six of ’em. Six. If you’re keeping score, there are six people in my family.

Jehovah Jireh.

I felt like the Old Testament Hebrew gleaners, benefitting from Levitical provisions and picking up what others had left behind. I felt like the hardy pioneers of old, who left their ramshackle homes and famished families on the prairie and emerged into the great wilderness, armed with nothing but a Bowie knife and searching for a Chick Fil A drive through.

When I wandered into my local Chick Fil A, I was met by my buddy, fellow FI Team member, and CFA manager Matt, who grinned and said, “What’d ya do, bring in a case of worship guides?”

And then I hurled myself across the counter and shoved a stuffed cow down his throat, because that’s what hardy pioneers do.

****

This post isn’t funny enough for you? Check out yesterday’s Chick Fil A tribute by my close personal friend Jon Acuff.