February 28, 2015. What are you reading?  What are you about to do?  What have you been doing this past week?  How has your day been?  All of these questions are drenched with the effectiveness of curiosity in our lives and how addicting it truly is to draw in information from sources around us.  As people continue to get to know one another, the curiosity increases until the addiction has become a habit without any point or force of stopping it.  People want to know “how”, “when”, “what”, “where”, or even “why” people do/say/act upon in daily routine and in general, life.  A compulsion of being curious is in everyone.

Have you ever seen an open bag of salty, tangy, tasty, and crispy potato chips on a kitchen counter, or maybe even an uncovered jar or bowl of assorted nuts sitting out in the open?  What is it that draws us to reach in or reach over and grab a handful of these delicacies and begin munching on them? But it doesn’t stop at just one handful, we are then compelled to grab another and another and another, until the bowl or bag is almost empty.  Were we really that hungry? Do I even like potato chips? Why am I not satisfied with only one handful? These are questions we then use to analyze our own actions after such a dramatic act of compulsion.  However, this example is not only for bags of chips…

I love coffee shops.  I can relax, have good conversations (no matter the language), and truly talk to people in an environment where I don’t feel threatened by ambiguous “getting to know you” questions.  I also love to read and to write, I would say arithmetic but unfortunately I have not calculated anything recently.  I have made many good connections and have had many more good conversations at several different coffee shops here in Ufa.  I am like an open bag of chips to the people full of curiosity.  They will ask questions and I will give them answers, and I will also take part in asking questions and seeking answers.  However, I only give them enough, so as to not fully satisfy their curiosity, but instead to be able to come back and have them ready for more questions.

I have seen this happen with my own personal life as I read through the Word of God.  I will read through a passage in scripture and God will give me what I need for that moment, but enough to have me coming back with a more urgent curiosity than before.  This has resulted in me being left with an addiction of curiosity, of which, I don’t plant to try to curb.  I seek and desire God on a daily basis because of how good His Word tastes, as I read through moral enlightenments, stories of grace, stories of mercy, stories of redemption, and pure truth.  God keeps me coming back for more and more…just like a bag of chips.

Kevin S.