Ever hear someone say, “He’s a good egg”? Recently we discussed how similar people are to eggs, and a few of our readers probably thought we had finally cracked. Ouch! Eggs, like people, come in different sizes and colors. Eggs, like people, can have different backgrounds: eggs can be from hens, ducks, quails, emus, ostriches, etc.; and people can be from different ethnic groups or countries, have different gifts, talents, life experiences, etc. But despite all the differences, eggs and people are pretty much the same inside. Yolks and Folks are all equal once you get to know them, once you penetrate their shells.
Eggs, regardless of origin, color or size, can blend perfectly together in an omelet. People can blend together in the same fashion, to create a harmonious family, church, neighborhood or work environment.
There is, however, one egg you never want in your omelet, because it can spoil the whole dish: a rotten egg! We learned the hard way. Whisk together a single rotten egg in a dish with 11 good eggs, and you get an egg mixture that stinks! One rotten egg manages to contaminate all the other eggs. Which is why we “screen” our eggs. It’s easier to simply crack all the eggs into a single bowl when cooking, but we advise against it. Once the rotten egg is in the mix, it’s impossible to separate it. So we crack each egg into a small dish, examine it and smell it, before adding it to whatever we’re preparing.
Bet you’re way ahead of us this time. Yes, the same goes for people. One rotten egg can spoil your workplace, your church, your club, even your home!
So what makes a rotten egg? How about attitude? If you pay close attention, you can see the effect that a negative person can have on the moral of those around them. People within any type of group can be enthusiastic, ready to try new ideas and get the job done, but add one negative attitude, one person whose motto is “It can’t be done”; whose mantra is “It will never work”; someone who actually delights in raining on other people’s parades; and pretty soon everyone’s moral starts to drop. Say goodbye to a winning team, say hello to an “omelet” that stinks through and through!
Remember the 12 spies who reconnoitered the promised land? (in Numbers 13) Two returned with positive attitudes: “We can defeat the Giants and claim the promise!” But there were ten rotten eggs in the dozen. They said, We won’t succeed, and their stinking attitudes soon permeated the entire camp of the Hebrews, contaminating enough of the people that “The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land He promised them….” (Numbers 14:16 NIV)
Sometimes people speak words of gloom and doom simply because they themselves have repeatedly suffered defeat and have lost faith. But there are many other reasons people have stinking thinking. They may be fearful. They may just like to argue. They may be jealous or mean-spirited. They
may suffer from feelings of inferiority, and feel the need to build themselves UP by putting others DOWN. Whatever the cause, their rotteness can manifest itself in other ways, none of them healthy to the “omelet”:
Put-down humor, making fun of others, or telling jokes at someone’s expense! Nobody enjoys this type of humor when they’re the target. “Throw out the mocker, and fighting goes, too; Quarrels and insults will disappear.” (Proverbs 22:10 NLT)
Vulgarity and perverseness in the form of crude jokes, foul language, or sexual references. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29 NIV)
A critical or judgmental spirit: “Brothers and sisters, stop complaining about each other, or you will be condemned. Realize that the judge is standing at the door.” (James 5:9 GOD’S WORD)
How about gossip? The goal of gossip is usually to slander someone, but regardless of the motive, gossip is always divisive! A gossiper can destroy loyalties and relationships, disrupting the harmony within any group. “A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.” (Proverbs 16:28 NIV)
If you don’t want your “omelet” to stink, you’ll need to get rid of the rotten eggs. In cooking, we toss them into the garbage disposal. But we don’t throw away people with rotten attitudes. NEVER! We first try to help them. We admonish them. And we love them. But if they refuse to change, we’ll need to follow Joel Osteen’s advice, and “Love them from a distance.” We can still be friendly and continue to help when we can, but we won’t be able to enter into any form of “partnership” with them. Rotten eggs can make you sick! So please try and be a good egg! “Speech that heals is like a life-giving tree, but a perverse tongue breaks the spirit.” (Proverbs 15:4 NET Bible)
when microwaved. When you have a bean burst, it hurls shrapnel in every direction: chili sauce, cheese, and bean fragments. The insides of Luke and Nuke were smeared with gunk! Cleaning up this mess was time consuming and not much fun. But we knew we needed to fix our mess before the chili sauce and cheese dried and got hard. Believe it or not, we can all learn an incredible lesson from this unfortunate mishap. Yes, we all need to cover our dinners in the microwave, but we also need to frequently cover our mouths.
words before they charge out of our mouths. Decide if what we’re about to say is helpful. Will it improve the situation. Will it BUILD the listener UP, or TEAR the listener DOWN.
doing. The Apostle Paul writes, “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11 NLT)