You may have heard the story of the new bride who was cooking her first roast for her husband. Upon tasting his dinner, the husband said, “Honey, this is delicious!” Then after eating a few more bites he turned to his beautiful wife and said, “Why did you chop off the ends of the roast before you cooked it? I always thought that was the best part.”

She responded, “I’m not entirely sure, but that’s the way my mom always did it.” After cleaning up, she phoned her mother to ask her for the reason for cutting the ends off. Her mother said, “I don’t know. That’s how your grandma always did it.”

So she called her grandma, who chuckled and said, “That’s because we had a very small oven and a full roast would never fit.”

And so it is with many of us that we continue doing things in our lives because that’s the way it’s always been done or because we believe that’s expected of us. What would happen if we took a really hard look at the way we do life? I’ll bet we’d find a lot of things that could be improved in areas that we feel can’t be changed or that we think are fine right now. If we did this, we just might find that…

  • we don’t need to feel worthless
  • we don’t need to eat to comfort ourselves
  • we don’t need to drink to kill the pain
  • we don’t need to yell in order to prove that we’re the boss
  • we don’t need to work 80 hours per week because we believe it’s what’s required
  • exercise can be enjoyable if we give it a chance
  • we don’t need to promote ourselves to show that we matter
  • we don’t need to judge others to make us look better

The list could go on and on. A question that’s been asked a lot lately in the Bible study I’m a part of is, “How do I know if I’m being deceived?” This is a great question. The fact is, we could all be believing lies in certain areas of our lives. The keys are to pray that the Lord would show you any areas in which you are being deceived and to surround yourself with wise counsel, those who can and will speak truth to you. Then once that is revealed to you, stop cutting the ends off your roast!

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2