Popeye...

[singing] "He's Popeye the Sailor Man. He's Popeye the Sailor Man. He's strong to the finich cause he eats his spinach, he's Popeye the sailor man"

I'm not sure i loved the old cartoon character 'Popeye'... he freaked me out(he was ugly and he ate vegetables... yuck).
From his build, to his slurred speech and his walk... everything about him was dice to me. Even his heroism.

Every episode featured a clash between he and his arch enemy, the big mean villain Bluto, who was just so mean, he even proudly sang about his mean self "I'm so mean, I had a dream of beatin' myself up. 'Broke my nose, I broke my hand, I wrestled myself to the ground and then, I choked myself to death and broke the choke, and woke up. Aaaarrrrrrgh. I'm mean. You know what I mean. If you know what I mean, you'll know what I mean! I'm mean! Meaner than... , I sure am mean. Yeah, mean. I'm meaner than that. You know what I mean. I'm so damn mean! I'm mean!"

You see, Bluto loved Olive Oly, who happened to be Popeye's love interest, and always attempted to kidnap her.
When Popeye ate the can of spinach... he got all this strength and the world was just a little crunchy nut to him. Bluto was always defeated, although he gave popeye a fair amount of thrashing before the he got empowered by the spinach, and beat the pulp out of his oppressor.


As unappealing as it is, i guess we have to see ourselves as Popeye (yeah, you're cuter than he is i know.) The word of God as written in the bible is our spinach. Most times, we're all just a pile of muscles with no strength in us... a bunch of larger than life Christians with no substance in us, and so when we're attacked by the devil, when he tries to kidnap our Olive Oly, which is our faith, our righteousness, peace and joy.... we're weak and helpless and fall prey to his trap, getting easily discouraged and falling into temptation.
If only we remember to take a regular portion of spinach everyday, we would have strength enough to fight off every weapon formed against us. Jesus used the written word to fight temptation. We can too.

Times when we get weak and discouraged, prayer is perfect. But then, what is prayer without the word? It's like watering the ground without planting, we just make the soil soft, but there's no seed in there to grow... its all dead. A constant supply of the word in us is where our strength lies.

I'm still a little stubborn when it comes to eating my spinach, Bluto gets the upper hand sometimes, because i let myself  get so distracted and end up with an unbalanced diet... Then i start to feel weak and realize i need my meal to defeat the Blutos' in my life. When i do, just like magic, strength is restored to my soul, there's a confidence in me and a walk of reassurance with Olive Oly resting peacefully in my arms. Bliss!

Remember, a spinach a day beats the hell out of Bluto. I pray for grace to eat our vegetables, to be refreshed and strengthened by the word of truth daily.

Comments

  1. Thank you so much, this really ministered to me.( the spiritual aspect and the eating veggies part)both lovely ways to view Popeye. God bless you.

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  2. God bless U!...Lovely insight!

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  3. I try as much as possible to eat my 'veggies' so i don't 'eat' them only when i'm weak and desperately need them. Thanks as always for my regular 'vegies' :)

    And thanks for dropping by my blog too

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  4. Inyamu, your articles never fail to encourage me as you enable me to view things in a newer and more refreshing way. God bless you.

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  5. Did I ever tell you that I love, love and love your analogies?

    Thanks for making ministrations interesting

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  6. Oh girl! U are a blessing to this generation! May God bless u real good for this piece!

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  7. Great insight. You just reminded me of all those Popeye comics and they're so funny.

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