We all know the delicious and popular snack, popcorn. We eat it in movie theaters, at fairs, in our homes, and sometimes we eat it under an 80 foot waterfall deep in the Panamanian cloud Forrest. You know what I mean? God showed me real servanthood a couple weeks ago using a bag of popcorn and I’m bout to tell yah all about it.
It was adventure day for my team and I two Saturdays ago when we decided that we’d make a trip to a nearby water fall to go swimming with our host family. So we hopped in the back of our host fathers truck, then headed through some very off-road terrain which is typical up here in the mountains if you intend to get anywhere. Once we could drive no longer we then trekked deep into the Forrest away from everything except God and his creation.
It was a trek of literal ups and downs as we inched our way through the unforgiving, slippery, jungle-like terrain. Many falls did occur and it was no small task to navigate the steep grades and muddy surfaces. If you’ve ever seen Black Sheep picture the scene where Chris Farley rolls down the hill for like ten minutes until finally he manages to grab ahold of a little root that holds strong as he grips it tightly to stop from rolling any further. It was very much like that scenario because if you didn’t have a good grip on a nearby root you were gonna slide downward until the hill said otherwise.
Once we had made it down the last hill and hiked just a bit Further through the Forrest we stumbled across a truly magnificent sight. An 80 foot water fall encased in a blanket of dense green Forrest. We all jumped in and swam in the refreshing mountain water. There was also a huge cloud of very dense mist surrounding about a hundred foot radius of the falls. Which leads me to the best part of this story.
As we were standing waist deep right next to the falls completely surrounded by mist, our host father walks up with a huge smile on his face holding a bag of popcorn. I started cracking up laughing because this seemed like the most inopportune place in the world to offer some one a snack, let alone popcorn. It was very obviously going to be soaked by water, but I was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit as my host father inched closer to us with the damp popcorn. I felt in my heart that a very deep spiritual parallel was unfolding in front of me in the form of a hilarious soaking wet offering of popcorn. The servanthood was monumental and I couldn’t help but reach my hand out and take a handful of the savory and slightly damp snack. The dynamic of serving others with God’s love was carried out by my host father, and then completed by our choice to receive God’s love in the moment. Wet popcorn definitely isn’t my favorite snack but I’ll never forget the moment when I realize that my host father wasn’t kidding as he brought us some. He was acting from a place of love and servanthood. I’ll never forget how much God showed me in that seamlessly unimportant moment.
It may sound crazy, and maybe even a little gross but I didn’t care about anything in that moment except completing God’s work by accepting his love in the form of damp popcorn in a huge cloud of mist underneath an 80 foot waterfall in the middle of the Panamanian cloud forrest. So there yah go folks. Damp popcorn, give it a try!
