Thoughts on Cheese

First off, Casi has pointed out that 'cheese' is the new drug on the streets (see here). I'm not talking about that...

A small group of friends at work and I went to the company library today with the intent of finding a book that we could read and discuss. We ended up walking out with "Who Moved My Cheese" by Spencer Johnson. It's a very short read (30 to 45 minutes) told as a parable. The story centers around 4 creatures whose every waking moment is spent in the pursuit of cheese. They learn of a room within the maze where the cheese always seems to appear and begin to build their lives around it so much so that they are blind to the fact that there is less and less cheese appearing each day until eventually it stops appearing all together. The rest of the story is spent talking about how the creatures deal with this change. Some immediately pick up and move on. Some have a long internal debates. Some just sit, stuck on memories of the past, and presumably starve to death.

The explanation of the parable is obvious enough. Cheese is, "a metaphor for what we want to have in life, whether a job, a relationship, money, a big house, freedom, health, recognition, spiritual peace, or even an activity like jogging or golf." The maze is the place that we spend looking for it, although I would argue it is our lives since the creatures could not escape the maze. The creatures themselves represent us and how we adapt to change. Easy enough.

Despite its affirmation that we're in charge of our own happiness, and if we aren't getting our cheese we just need to gather enough self-will to pick up and move on, I didn't find any comfort in it.

As a Christian, I realized several things. To continue the metaphor the book began, there is Someone who has a top-down perspective of the maze. Someone who knows every turn and dead-end and knows every creature living in the maze by name. He placed each of them in the maze with purpose and intent and is the ultimate source of their cheese, even though they don't know it. His sole desire is to have a relationship (a friendship) with the creatures, for them to simply look up and see the smiling face looking back at them.

The creatures were not placed in the maze to spend their lives looking for cheese.

We as people spend our whole lives thinking that if we aren't happy, something is terribly wrong. If a relationship or a job or any situation is no longer fulfilling, we need to put our running shoes on and move on. How near-sighted and selfish is that! There are good things in life that don't immediately feel good. If we seek to be led, we need to stop looking at the path ahead and start looking up at The One looking back at you.

Maybe you're in a situation that you're not happy with. Maybe you've got a spouse you're not connecting with or a job that isn't fulfilling and you're longing for a change. Why not look at where you are and ask why have you've been brought here to this place. There might be blessings all around that you aren't seeing (and will never see) unless you look up.