November 7, 2025

Breaking the Mold: Discovering Blind Spots in Your Faith Journey

I've been married since 1997 and lived in an apartment or house since 1994. It would be reasonable to presume that I've pretty well mastered adult living by now—and you wouldn't be totally wrong.

I know how to load a dishwasher. I can squeeze the toothpaste tube the proper way. I'm generally good about changing furnace filters. And I am a pro at cleaning out gutters. But that's not all! I also know how to install drywall. I can fix a leaky faucet or pipe, replace a water heater, and swap out well pump pressure switches. And I can even run electricity and hook it up to the breaker box without causing a fire or personal injury.

But we're friends, so I'm going to be a bit vulnerable here. My handyman résumé is apparently a charade—nothing more than smoke and mirrors. And it's not that I can't do those things…I can. It's that I had a conversation with my wife last week that caused me to question everything. Here's the gist:

"Is this normal? Where do other people keep their bread?"

It was a humbling moment. My decades of adulting have apparently not equipped me to manage the purchase and use of the various bread products that my family consumes—white, multi-grain bread, English muffins, hot dog and hamburger buns, and tortillas.

Here's the rub. I can guarantee you that the types and colors of mold currently present in the cabinet above my coffee maker could easily win any middle school science fair across the country. One upside is that we have enough penicillin to survive a societal collapse, but what kind of person ends up throwing away completely unusable and unrecognizable packages of hot dog buns? Me, that's who.

Now, I realize moldy buns aren’t a major life crisis. But it did get me thinking…

No matter how competent we are or pretend to be, we aren't done learning—and there are probably some very basic things we still don't know. That's true around the house and it's also true about our spiritual journey. Think about the story of the "rich young ruler" described in Matthew 19. Like my ignorance about basic bread storage, he missed something elementary.

He approached Jesus with an idealistic confidence. After all, he had a strong resume of checking off religious boxes. He apparently felt pretty good about his spiritual resume because he said, "All these I have kept" when Jesus listed, "You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself" (19:18-19). But things still fell apart. He went away sad because despite all of this he still "had great wealth" (19:22).

He let the hot dog buns in his heart get moldy (please forgive the mixed metaphor).

It seems so basic when we think about it—"Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me" (19:21). Sure, the sell your possessions bit may not be completely intuitive, but the principle of selflessness isn't surprising. And the call to be willing to give up everything in pursuit of Jesus is as basic as knowing how to store bread. How does a person mess up something that basic?

Truthfully… it's possible to throw away a lot of moldy hot dog packages before ever realizing there's a problem. After all, one moldy package of hot dog buns is no big deal—it's just an inconvenience. And how many packages does a person need to throw away before the issue changes from a series of unconnected inconveniences to a critical deficiency? A lot, apparently!

I will say from personal experience that when I learn that a problem exists, the temptation can be overwhelming to hide the facts that I don't know where to properly store bread, or that I haven't figured out how to live out of the most basic biblical expectations. But I also know for certain that continuing to ignore those patterns will only produce more mold—both literally and metaphorically.

So, what's the solution? First, acknowledge and own the conviction that it's not okay to let your hot dog buns or your heart get moldy. Second, don't be too proud or stubborn to admit when you identify a deficiency in your knowledge or follow-through. And finally, don't be a Lone Ranger. Remember the old adage, "there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9)—people have been navigating these issues for a long time so there is someone out there who has your answers.

Find a life group, a mentor, or a trusted friend, and ask questions—even if, and maybe especially if, those questions seem surprisingly elementary. Who knows. Maybe you'll learn where you should be storing your bread—and you'll definitely learn that you’re not the only one who sometimes discovers a surprisingly basic gap in their walk with Christ.

Jeff Derico

Executive Pastor

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