If you’re part of a family, you’ve faced it: Picky eaters. And it may be the picky eater in your family stares back at you from the mirror each day! My children weren’t crazy picky about their food, but they sure liked to complain about it.
Recalibrating Our Entitlement Mentality
I did a lot of traveling internationally when my kids were younger. It was not uncommon for God to take me into a warzone or natural disaster for weeks at a time. The things I saw, smelled, tasted–and at times ate–left profound impressions on my life in regards to having an entitlement mentality.
Fortunately, seeing people with so little means of support (or none) made me a more grateful person, at least for a while, and I wanted my family to truly understand this and embrace God’s abundant grace poured into our life.
That’s It, This Has to Stop!
When you experience radical differences in lifestyles and the expectations of other people who are at a similar age and stage of life as you are in, it can really throw you for a loop and cause you to do some crazy recalibrating.
I started noticing how much complaining we all did back home. One regular source of grumbling was around the dinner table. My kids were around 13, 11 and 9 years old at the time, and even though my wife is a seriously awesome cook, they often didn’t want to eat what she made and set on the table.
I’d had enough.
Don’t you kids know how lucky you are to have food like this?! Do you know that two-thirds of the people living on this planet would be stoked of they just had beans and rice to eat today. Just once a day…not three meals. (I’m probably shouting a little at this point.) I have been with so many children who have had nothing to eat for days or even weeks and they would be thrilled to have just a little beans and rice to eat!” Yikes.
Beans and Rice and Rice and Beans
So I concocted a plan that my wife went along with. For the next thirty days we would eat nothing but beans and rice for dinner. That’s it. They could still have their normal Cheerios and toast or whatever for breakfast, they could eat their school lunches, but at dinner it would be nothing but beans and rice for a month. Then…maybe they–I mean–we would learn to be a little more thankful for what we had to eat around here.
Awesome right?
The kids didn’t think so, but they had no choice but to go along for the ride. And so it went. Until twelve days into this little experiment in attitude adjustment. I came home from work on that day and my wife was just getting ready to set out dinner and I noticed it was not beans and rice. What?!
“Why are we not having beans and rice for dinner tonight, we’re not even half way though the month?”
Tina explained. Today was our daughter Christin’s birthday. As was our regular family tradition, she got to pick what we ate for dinner; her birthday, her choice. “Yeah, but not this time, we’re doing the beans and rice thing. No way!” I objected. But it was too late. The food was cooked. The promise had been made. We shared a meal of broccoli chicken divan followed by birthday cake with eleven blazing candles and chocolate ice cream.
Let’s Try This Again
I have to admit, even though Tina had been pretty creative in her making a variety of different versions of beans and rice so far, this was a welcome break in the action. But, not one to go back on my ruthless quest to “be more thankful”, I reinstated the experiment by starting over for another full thirty days. So, in the end, we ended up eating beans and rice for thirty days plus twelve.
Alrighty!
The kids about freaked out, and I ended up looking like a bit of a tyrant as a father, but I have to say that the experience changed us in some pretty cool ways. We really did become much more thankful for the blessings God gave our family. We talked long and hard about why some people get so much while others seem to get much less. And to this day my kids will eat anything that is put in front of them. Anything.
Not An Example To Follow
I want to be honest with you. This may not have been the best way to motivate my family–or anyone. I’m learning to be more grace-based in such things.
But it’s a great story though, and I wanted to share it with you.
And I did because sometimes we need to stare our areas of self-centeredness right in the face in order to truly see them. We can miss everyday opportunities for growth and provisions of grace if we’re not looking for them. God can shape our lives in some pretty amazing ways once he gets our attention.
By the way, I still always order beans and rice when out eating tacos or burritos.
My kids, not so much.
The next best time to grow in gratitude and see all good things from God’s own hand is today. Leave me your thoughts, ideas and any “pushbacks” in the comments below.
