An Acquired Taste

Mothers everywhere know that whiny, annoying declaration of defiance their kids make while dissecting their food. They use their forks and inspect every bite on their plate, making sure it isn't contaminated by some hated vegetable.

I used to be that way about onions. If there was an onion on my plate, I was going to find it and I was not going to eat it. If I smelt onions, tasted onions, or saw onions being used in the cooking, then by my standards, the food was unfit.

Take heart, dear mothers out there. This blog was inspired by the soup that I made for myself this afternoon! When I put down the wooden spoon and grabbed the freshly chopped onions to throw into the steamy lunch, I thought about one thing: an acquired taste.

I have learned to like onions, along with other things like celery and peas. Over the past year my diet has become revolutionized; as chocolate, cookies, chips, pizza, and fats or oils of any sort were thrown out the door along with seventy-five pounds of baggage I used to carry around. I missed the junk food at first, but it's been a year and I no longer find the majority of it appealing. The things I do find appealing - fruit smoothies, vanilla yogurt - are the very things I would once turn my nose up at.

An acquired taste. After several mouths of very strict discipline, my tastes have changed.

What if we take my situation, but substitute onions for church?

Some of us really don't like church, especially at first. We don't like getting up early. We feel we don't belong. We're bored in the pews. After a week or two, we decide to sleep in and give up on church for a while.

Church can be an acquired taste, and I'm not kidding. At first, it might not be appealing. But if we continuously go, make a commitment, and really make an effort to move closer to God through it, there will come a time when church will be enjoyable. There will come a time when getting up on Sunday morning doesn't feel like such a chore.

It might take a while. My hate for onions wasn't easily overcome. But it was worth it for me to change my eating habits. How much more worth it would it be to get closer to God, who made and cares for us, and to get closer to his people?

It's worth a shot, isn't it?