Saturday, May 11, 2024
Years ago, Wendy’s had a wildly popular commercial with an old crotchety lady who looked at a competitor’s hamburger, an empty bun with a pitifully small-looking meat patty on it, and yelled “Where’s the beef?”
So we think the proof is in the pudding. That phrase came from a type of savory dish involving a sausage-like mass of seasoned minced meat, oatmeal, etc., stuffed into a prepared skin and boiled. The only way to tell if it was cooked was to take a bite. The proof was in eating the pudding.
We want to know before we experience. We want to know that everything is just right before we take a bite. “Where’s the beef?” is a metaphor for “Where’s the proof?” You can say all sorts of things about what you believe, but when it comes right down to it, what you believe is reflected in how you act. You can be a Bible-thumping Christian, but if you were on the brink of death from thirst, you’d ask to be saved by a drink of water before you’d ask for Jesus Christ to save you.
It’s not in concepts, but in living that we prove ourselves. The proof is in biting down, not talking about biting down. So many people who propose to have faith in God are scared chickens when the pudding is put in their face. They don’t bite, they’re waiting for “proof.” Their god is “out there” and proves himself to be fickle at best.
Talk is cheap. The burden of proof isn’t “on” you. You’re it. It’s those who are willing to put their foot in the place of their mouths that get anywhere. Proof isn’t in what you say. You are the proof, “the evidence” of the living Truth.