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Last Sunday, I was asked by my wife to buy bottles of milk from supermarket. So, I stopped by a local ShopRite supermarket to get two of them. Nowadays, supermarket is providing self checkout lanes just like gas stations aimed to reduce labor expense. At one of the self checkout lanes, I swiped my supermarket card to let the scanning machine recognize me first before I scan my milk. Immediately, the machine threw me an error message and asked me to find a salesperson for help. I thought it was either the machine does not like me :-), or my swiping was not done properly. Consequently, I reset the machine and restarted the process again. This time I carefully swiped my supermarket card and guess what, the same error message came up again. My mind told me that “Hey, dummy, just follow the advice!” Hence, I strolled to a counter and asked a salesperson to help me clear the message.

After the salesperson came and cleared the message, I re-swipe my card…… the same annoying message showed up again! I was about to blow up my patience; I looked at the salesperson and asked, “Why my card is not recognized?” The salesperson looked at me “sternly” and said, “This is ShopRite, not Stop & Shop!” I suddenly realized that I was using a “wrong” (Stop & Shop) supermarket card. Boy! I was embarrassed. 🙁 On my way out, I blamed my old age again for this embarrassing experience. As I think it over, I find the experience is interesting and it gives me a perspective that might be interested to you also.

Sometimes, we may “quickly” judge something or someone without looking into ourselves first. This usually could generate embarrassing / awkward situations. You can call it a human weakness – finger pointing outward is easier than pointing inward, even we know that “three fingers inward” and “two fingers outward” are normal pointing style. The book of James teaches us that:

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 我親愛的弟兄們，這是你們所知道的‧但你們各人要快快的聽，慢慢的說，慢慢的動怒‧因為人的怒氣，並不成就 神的義‧(James 2:19-20)

Then, the machine was doing its job in filtering out wrong input from me. There is no back-off or compromise likes human usually would. Of course, you can argue that it is machine and is inhuman 🙂 As Christians, it is very important for us to function properly like the machine did – to discern good from evil messages from this world. It requires us to read God’s words diligently in order to become a mature person eating solid food, just like the author from the book of Hebrews said,

Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. 凡 只 能 吃 奶 的 都 不 熟 練 仁 義 的 道 理 ， 因 為 他 是 嬰 孩 ；惟 獨 長 大 成 人 的 才 能 吃 乾 糧 ； 他 們 的 心 竅 習 練 得 通 達 ， 就 能 分 辨 好 歹 了 。(Hebrews 5:13-14)

Lastly, using the right card is crucial to be recognized by the machine. It is similar to realize that the right “Way” is crucial to our salvation as Jesus said,

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 耶穌說，我就是道路，真理，生命‧若不藉著我‧沒有人能到父那裡去‧ (John 14:6)

My dear brothers and sisters, we used to be like the main character, “Graceless”, in the “The Pilgrim’s Progress天路歷程” by John Bunyan. Because of God’s grace, we become “Christian”.  Let’s remember His grace and count His blessings. There is no greater gift than His son, Jesus Christ.