I Just Want To Be An Onion

Here is my disclaimer:  onions are disgusting and I can’t stand them, but they taught me a valuable lesson today.

Today for lunch I went to Subway like always and ordered the same sandwich I always do.  For some reason, the lady put onions on my sandwich today before I could catch her, and having worked in food service before, it’s always embarrassing to get something wrong so I thought to myself, “I’ll just take the onions off when I get back to work.”

Well, I got to work and I took the onions off, but you know what?  The entire sandwich still tasted like onions.  It’s like wherever an onion goes, the memory is still there as long as the thing it touched was.  I’m also fairly positive that I should keep a good three foot distance from everyone today or I may lose some friends.  I couldn’t finish the sandwich because it tasted so bad, and I hate wasting food.  As I made faces at the onions lying on the wrapper, I realized something.  I want to be an onion.

Now, I don’t mean that I want to smell bad and drive away all my friends.  However, when I think about the Christian life, I wonder how many people who call themselves Christians come and go in their everyday lives and the world around them is no different for them having been there.  If I am truly following Christ, then I will reflect His flavor strongly, so that everything I touch and everywhere I go will smell and taste like Him when I am gone.  It’s not about me changing the world; it’s about me reflecting Him.  The onion doesn’t talk the tomato’s ear off or bore the lettuce to death with its theology (because if my food started talking, I don’t know what I’d do).  However, the onion, just by being what it is spreads its flavor around everywhere it goes.

Again, I hate onions.  They taste terrible.  However, I admire the onion and what it stands for.  That veggie truly makes a difference everywhere it goes.  I want to be like that too.