Imagine going into a nice Italian Restaurant for a great meal. You enter with your loved one and you are seated at a nice table in a quiet corner by a Hostess. After you get seated and handed a menu, one of the restaurant employees brings you a basket of hot, fresh Italian Bread! Yum! You grab a piece of bread, put some butter on it and as your mouth is watering, you take a bite. Yuck! It's as hard as a rock and ... it's stale! Your loved one figures, "Maybe it's just that one piece?" They do the same thing and guess what? The whole breadbasket is stale! Your waitress walks up to your table asking, "Are you ready to order?" You tell her the breadbasket you were given has all stale bread. "Would you please give us some fresh Italian bread?" She says, "Oh, I am so sorry. Let me take that away and get you both a fresh batch of hot, Italian bread in a basket." She returns with a new basket and the problem is solved. Fresh, new Italian bread!
No, this blog is not about bread or food. I do work two jobs that have to deal with food so I'm around it all the time. It is very rare working at Chick Fil-A where I have heard a guest walk up and say, "The bread on this sandwich is stale!" Maybe 2 times in working there over ten years. This blog is about our lives and how we are living in the moment. Are we stale around others? Do we seem very enthusiastic around other people?
Have you ever looked around and said to yourself, "Am I really making a difference in this world? When people look at me on a daily basis, what do they see?" Recently, while I was on a register at Trader Joe's, it was very slow. We were about to close in about an hour. I started thinking to myself, "What do people see when they see me? Do they see an enthusiastic guy? Do they see an old, tired guy who is working hard? Do I come across as stale?" And the important question. "Do they see Jesus in me?" Let me be transparent! I am working very hard on not being stale. Not a whole lot of people know about my ministry background here in South Carolina. I am not called Pastor Dave. I am Dave! People don't care what I have accomplished, nor do they ask and that's okay. In New York, when I was Pastoring, I would be introduced by people and that person would share all my accomplishments. It would be embarrassing many times, but it did feel good. I'm sure that person would look at me thinking, "Wow, that guy is really on fire for God." I have realized that regardless of my title in a church and the jobs I have, I don't want people to look at me as being a stale person. I want them to see Jesus in me whether I am taking orders outside at Chick Fil-A, opening boxes of frozen food at Trader Joe's or walking into a Walmart to buy food.
Maybe you don't attend church and don't understand what it means "Putting Jesus first in your life." How about doing "random acts of kindness" for others? How about just sharing a smile with someone? Trust me when I say I see a lot of unhappy, miserable people ordering food or purchasing food. It makes me sad to see this. I don't want to be that person who will make their day even worse. I certainly do not know what they are going through or what is making them unhappy. I don't want to be stale when I interact with them. I want to be that person who puts a smile on their face (even if it's a forced smile) 😁.
So, to conclude, let us never appear to others as a stale person or stale personality. Going back to that Italian bread, it was recognized almost right away how stale it was. It was certainly not something favorable or enticing. There needed to be a change. I have made my own personal vow in 2026 and beyond that even if I am tired, cranky or feeling down, I still want to come across to others as a positive, friendly person. Certainly not stale. People want friendly and positive. Stale is a "turn off." I hope you all feel the same way!
THANK YOU FOR READING! HAVE A GREAT WEEK!
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