“The Right Order for the Wrong Person”

There have been more times in the recent future that I have ordered food from a drive thru fast food restaurant and when I pulled my food out after I left that I noticed that they gave me the wrong food.  It is frustrating when you make an order, verify the order on the screen, pay your money and then when you have the expectation to consume what your appetite suggested, it is not what you ordered.  Yesterday I ordered a meal from Braum’s in Oklahoma City, OK.  I went inside to order my food and the lady taking our order had a conversation with us and she even helped me with my order to save money.  If you promise not to judge me, I will continue with the story.  I ordered a double cheeseburger, with bacon, no tomatoes and no onions.  She told me I will just get you the single meal and add a patty and it will save you money. (the funny part about that is that I wasn’t paying for the meal but thanks for helping my friend’s pocketbook) We waited for a long time and other people who ordered after me got their food before we did.  In my mind I was like, “man, they are making the bestest, freshest meal!”  (forgive the grammar, it is meant for emphasis) As we pulled off and got down the road my stomach and mouth were ready to bite into this Braum’s burger.  I do as I normally do, and I ate my fries first.  Then I pulled out my burger, unwrapped it and took a bite only to find out that this burger is not what I ordered.  It had swiss cheese, mushrooms and only one patty.  I was so disappointed.  I should have gone back but we were too far down the road and I didn’t want to spend more time on that meal going back to get the order right.  So, I went ahead and ate the burger even though it is not what I ordered.

As I contemplated what went wrong, I began to think that not only am I disappointed but someone else got my burger and they are disappointed as well.  Whoever ordered the burger I ended up with had a different appetite than I did.  They wanted certain things that I didn’t want and vice-versa.  I came to the conclusion that the order was right, but they gave it to the wrong person.

Well what does this say to me?  Sometimes in life we feel like what we ordered we didn’t get.  We end up having to play the hand that was dealt.  Yes, I could have went back and complained about my order and got it right, but it would have taken more time and it would have altered the direction that I was already on.  Too often we ask for certain things in life only to find out that we end up with a different answer to our prayers.  We think we know what is best for us and we EXPECT God to get our order right.  We are specific in our prayers, we give our money to the Lord and we want our order to be right.  Only to find out that when we get down the road that what we PRAYED and PAID for is different than what we expected.

Here is where I had a shouting moment!  After eating the burger that I didn’t order, I came to the conclusion that the burger I ended up with was a healthier and better option for me than the one I ordered!  Praise God!!!  I ordered a carb laced burger with double meat, cheese and bacon.  What I got was one piece of meat, swiss cheese and mushrooms.

Sometimes God must alter our order because He knows what is best for us even though we WANT something different.  At first, I was disappointed, but after a while I understood that God knew what I needed!

Michael O. Oyedokun II