Hi, all. Just a thought to help start your weekend.

This picture is of a bath tub. It is a normal, albeit old style, bath tub. It is brown, of normal size and normal shape. So what makes this tub any different from any other tub you’ve ever seen?

My wife and I were on a road trip nearly two years ago during which we drove through several states in the eastern U.S. We stopped wherever we wanted. Did some sightseeing. Ate at some places we don’t have near home. Each evening, we talked about what we had done and where we had been, and we mapped out the next day’s tentative plans. As we crossed the Pennsylvania state line, driving west to east, my wife realized our chosen route would take us within 30 miles or so of the town of Hershey, made famous, of course, because of the great work of Mr. Milton Hershey and his beloved chocolate factory. So we detoured.

We managed to find a hotel room right on Hershey Way, ate a nice dinner, and the next morning took an interesting tour of the Hershey museum and factory. Their gift shop will go down in history as the largest candy store I’ve ever seen. (Yes, we came home with a bunch!) But in our tour of that place, we were able to see how the milk chocolate production was done in years past versus today’s more mechanized methods.

The old tub you see here was used to carry molten chocolate. These tubs on wheels were pushed by factory workers from one station to another in the chocolate making process. This old bath tub is different because of what was inside it!

Christian, I suggest that we are the same as that old tub. We may look like the others around us. We may have similar shape, size, and color. We may even get around in a similar manner. But we contain something the world does not — the Holy Spirit. And He can put a “coating” or “flavor” on our lives like nothing else ever could.

I’m glad we made that slight detour that day. I’m blessed and thankful that what I am privileged to carry with me every day I live is by far the biggest and best thing I’ve ever possessed — the love and forgiveness of Almighty God.

This week, encourage someone who has never met the Lord to taste and see that He is good!

Just a thought. ’Til later.

Brad Campbell can be reached at mastah.pastah@yahoo.com.