Ice Cream Potato Surprise!?!
By Pastor Ellis White
Senior Pastor
“You’ve got to try the ice cream potato!” That’s what we were told by someone who grew up in Boise, when asked what some must-see sights for a trip to Boise are. Ice cream potato!? That sounds disgusting, I thought. And it didn’t get any better when I googled it. Was this thing a potato-flavored ice cream? Or a potato skin filled with ice cream? Or a baked potato with whipped cream, nuts, and chocolate?
So last week, upon arrival in Boise for our Presbytery meeting, we made the trek to Westside Drive In and ordered an ice cream potato. It looked as weird as the photos. But thankfully it was delicious. It was vanilla ice cream, shaped like a baked potato, and covered in cocoa powder, before being cut open like a baked potato and having whipped cream, nuts, Oreo crumbs, and chocolate syrup dumped on top. Hiding under a potato like exterior was an ice cream sundae!
I have recently been reading a book entitled, Made for People, by Justin Whitmel Earley. In it he talks about how God designed us to be in relationship with others, but following the fall, humanity’s natural instinct is to push away from others. Beginning in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:7), we have sought to hide our true selves from others as a defense mechanism. But, the author writes:
“…everything changes when we realize that our instinct to hide is not only wrong but also incredibly dangerous. We mistakenly think that hiding keeps us safe by shielding us from danger. But what hiding actually shields us from is love. It may be counterintuitive at first, but consider that we are not happiest when we are hiding and “safe.” We are happiest when we are exposed and loved anyway. We are the most human when we are most intimately known. And that means coming out of our hiding places.” (Made for People, p. 43)
God did not design us to cover up and hide from others. He designed us to live in community with others where we are fully known and fully loved. Just like that ice cream potato—a sweet sundae hiding behind an unappealing disguise—we often present a carefully crafted exterior, hiding what’s really inside. But God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and he calls us to allow others to see us as we truly are.
So here’s the challenge: Stop hiding. Step out of the defenses you’ve built around yourself and live in the freedom of being fully known and loved. It might feel risky, but it’s the only way to experience the deep relationships you were made for. Who will you allow to truly know you this week?
And if you don’t have anyone you can list, I want to invite you to consider joining a LifeGroup—a safe place where we can share with others our lives and our struggles and grow in our faith as we pursue following Jesus together. We’re not designed to do this faith journey alone. You can find out more here.
Tomorrow, we preach our final message in Acts for a few months, before beginning a series on our Vision as a church, followed by an advent series from Micah, and a new year series on Relationships and Marriage. But before all that, we’re going to see how the church in Antioch was used by God to change the world, and how we can put that into practice today.
See you at 9:00 or 10:30 am.
Pastor Ellis