The Christian 5-Second Rule

You drop your Cheeto on the ground. It’s a wood floor. You vacuumed…sometime in the last 6 months…you only have another 100 Cheetos in the bag…you make the decision. You pick up the Cheeto, pop it in your mouth while speaking the rule all men know. “5-second rule.”

Of course, every man knows what this means. That germs and the things that defile a food have a courtesy wait of 5 seconds before they are allowed to infect and take over foods that have fallen upon the ground. They respect the law of the food and know that they will get their turn eventually.

…Who knows where the 5-second rule actually came from, but what if we made a 5-second rule for other parts of our lives? One that I thought of today, the title gives away. A 5-second rule for a Christian. You could probably think of a hundred of these, but specifically, I was thinking the 5-second rule of following what God is prompting you to do. When you feel God is prompting you to do something, do it within 5-seconds or not at all.

Be obedient to what he wants as soon as it happens. Don’t wait for it and say you want to confirm the feeling, just do it…with limits in place. Don’t be unwise. Don’t do anything that contradicts scripture. In general, don’t be a dumbo. But be open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. What it’s calling you to do in the moment.

You feel a random sudden urge to talk to someone in the store but have no idea what to say, don’t overthink it for the next 30-minutes and sweat every time you walk down the same aisle as that person. Start the conversation right away and stop carrying so much about what you look like. Be obedient to what God wants you to do and let God take control of the situation. He’s in control of the situation anyway, so the faster that we realize that and let Him do the work, the better the situation is going to turn out.

Start spreading the word. Christians have a 5-second rule now. Let’s make it happen.