One of the best parts of eating in a Chinese restaurant is not having all the wonderful dishes at the buffet table, but rather at the end of the meal when we receive the fortune cookies.
About a month ago, I got my fortune cookie after the meal and quickly ripped it in half. Laying the cookie aside, I went right for the fortune. The small strip of paper had these encouraging words, “You will have a long and healthy life.” That’s a good one. Come to think of it, I never have opened a fortune cookie that told me something bad, although I have heard there are some cookies in special packages that are downright mean predictions.
So I did a little research to see how this all got started.
To my amazement, the fortune cookie, like chop suey, is not Chinese but the results of a U.S. dreamer and inventor. Fortune cookies actually originated in Los Angeles, where Canton-native David Jung, a baker and restaurateur, began making cookies with thin slips of paper inside sometime around 1920. His purpose was to give people good feelings about themselves, even during troublesome times. Jung founded the Hong Kong Noodle Company, which was producing more than 3,000 cookies an hour in the 1920s.
In some ways, the Bible is like a fortune cookie. It has words of encouragement, love, forgiveness, and hope that are perfect for everyone today. Everywhere we study the Scripture we find direction for our lives.
But reading and studying Scripture should never be as casual as eating a fortune cookie, yet how often do we do just that. We open it up, take out the words we want to read and toss the rest aside.
Instead God’s Word is just giving us a smile but we need to take the time to build a relationship with the One who gives us a fortune each day. It is the thrilling fortune (message) along with blessings seen and not seen in which demonstrates that the Creator of the universe is in love with us.
Meditating on the words and making them live in our hearts will give us more wonderful fortunes than the 3,000 cookies baked in an hour back in the 1920s.
1 John 2:14 I write to you, my children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who has existed from the beginning. I write to you, young people, because you are strong; the word of God lives in you, and you have defeated the Evil One.
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