How To Enter A Gas Station And Not Start A Riot

What if the strongest proof of God in your life is not what you claim but how you love? We open the day with 1 John’s bold line—God is love—and follow it into everyday spaces where patience wins and fear loses. No stained-glass distance here: we talk about crowded counters, loud phone calls, and how a calm presence can shift the room. Love is not weakness; it is disciplined strength that refuses to mirror the worst energy in front of us.

From there we draw a surprising thread to the 1975 Pet Rock phenomenon. Millions bought a joke with a great story, and for a brief moment a packaged stone felt like joy. It’s a snapshot of how novelty can capture attention without delivering meaning. The contrast is the point: love endures because it changes people, not because it entertains them. When we choose gentleness over heat, we are practicing a durable good that trends cannot touch.

We also wrestle with forgiveness. An apology without change is a rerun. Real repentance is course correction—retraining habits so you do not apologize for the same harm next week. Titles and labels—Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic—describe where we think we belong; character shows who we are becoming. Your resume lists places; God knows pain survived and strength gained. Let critics talk. If God is preparing you to carry blessing, he is also preparing you to shoulder the noise.

Join us for scripture that reads us back, a story from “stupid American history” that still teaches, and practical steps to enter any room with love already chosen. If this resonates, share it with a friend, subscribe for the next reflection, and leave a review telling us where you’re choosing love over fear this week.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening Blessing And Theme Of Love
• 2:33 Reading 1 John: God Is Love
• 5:46 Perfect Love Versus Fear
• 8:56 Everyday Example Of Walking In Love
• 12:41 Identity, Judgment, And God’s Preparation
• 14:31 Stupid American History: The Pet Rock Craze
• 19:11 Why The Fad Worked And Faded

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 1:06

Hey guys, it's B Rob. It's the Food for Thought Faith Cast, and I am your host. God bless you. It's a nice cold December day down in Georgia. I hope you guys are doing great. I hope you guys are staying positive. I hope you guys are um remember now there's life and death in the tongue. So make sure you're speaking life. Um we're gonna talk about love this week. This is gonna be the theme for the week and how God is love and how um I've got a couple nice readings planned for you, but this is first John. This is gonna be um chapters seven through eleven. This is knowing God through love. Um, beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. That's seven, eight. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Going on to nine. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. In this love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and he sent his son to be the propriety. I'm I'm I'm losing my words here. He sent his son to die for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. So if you keep going on through twelve, twelve through sixteen, seeing God through love. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us his spirit, and we have seen and testified that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world, and whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he is in God. And we have known and believed that love that God has for us, obviously, God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him. So basically, what it's saying in first John here is if you walk around in love and you love like God, God is with you. People will see that.

SPEAKER_04: 4:48

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_05: 4:50

I hope that makes total sense, guys. It's um the consummation of love. Love has been perfected among us in this. This is reading along to chapter 17. That we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in the world. There is no fear in love. We know fear is false, evidence appealing, real, but perfect love cast out all fear, because fear involves torment, but he who fears has not been made perfect in love, and we love him because he first loved us if someone says, I love God, and then turns around and hates his brother, that someone is a liar. For he does not love his brother, whom he can actually seen or has seen. How can he love God who he has not seen, but does not love his brother? And this commandment we have from him that he who loves God must love his brother also. Does that make sense? You can't hate people and then turn around and say you love God because God doesn't hate people. It's very tough thing to do to accomplish in this world. I get it. It's very tough. It really is. It truly is a tough thing. Just keep keep in mind, keep your head up. You know that old saying, that's I mean, and I'm 50 years old, I can say this. You get more with sugar than you do with vinegar. It's the truth. If you walk in just say you walk in a gas station, okay? There's about four people in line, some people standing around playing video poker, what have you. If you walk in cussing, raising hell, how many times have people seen this? Somebody walk in on the phone having a fight with whoever on the phone, and everybody's trying to mind their own business. Nobody likes that, right? Nobody, I mean, everybody agrees that is kind of annoying. That could be problematic. Because then they get an attitude, and who you looking at, da da da da. I'm not talking, you know, you that sort of thing. But what if somebody walks in glowing with the love of God?

SPEAKER_04: 8:10

Can you tell? Can you tell?

SPEAKER_05: 8:16

Can you tell if somebody walks in glowing with the love of God? They might even say, How are you today? Well, God bless you. Depends on where you're out. I mean, I'm Southern, so that's you know, that's the sort of thing I I might even ask him, you believe in Jesus? You know, you better get right. That sort of thing. But it's the truth. You better get right with Jesus. And this is the Food for Thought Faith cast. I appreciate you tuning in. You better get right with Jesus because Jesus loves you. And as long as you love everybody else like God, as long as you enter the room glowing, you ain't got to worry about nothing. God got you. Once again, my name is B Rob. This is the Food for Thought Faith Cast. God loves you, I love you, and hopefully you'll tune back in tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01: 9:21

I'm Christian, I'm Muslim, I'm Buddhist, I'm atheist, I'm agnostic. You can claim whatever you want in the eyes of God, in the way in the world.

SPEAKER_03: 9:45

The truth is, your resume tells people where you've been, but only God knows what you've been through. Let them talk, let them judge. Because when God decides you're going to succeed, he prepares you to handle every bit of negativity that comes with the blessing.

SPEAKER_05: 10:06

A wise man once said, The word hate has four letters, but so does the word love. The word enemies have seven letters, but so does the word friends. The word lying has five letters, but so does the word truth. The word cry has three letters, but so does the word joy. The word negativity has ten letters, but so does the word positivity. Choose the better side.

SPEAKER_00: 10:53

Whatever you try to hold on to, the nature of things is that this is happening. It's gonna move away from you. Whatever you try to avoid and push away from you, it's just a question of time. Until it's gonna move life pretty close towards you. If you don't want to have a life that is too shaky, don't touch the water. Don't touch any additional water along your goal, which ultimately means your energy is being just drawn away from your initial goal.

SPEAKER_05: 11:35

Hey guys, it's B-Rob. It's Food for Thought Faith Cast, and it is time for stupid American history, and we're gonna get real dumb real uh quick. I'm not saying I didn't have one of these, but this came out when I was uh born the year I was born, I think it was 75. But um, I'm gonna tell you this right now. I might have had one of these, but I didn't pay for it, and it wasn't in no box and it wasn't in no stove. You know what I'm saying? But uh the uh pet rock. Anybody ever have a pet rock? It was a short-lived but wildly successful novelty toy from 1975. Wow. Fifty years ago, the pet rock came out. It was uh invented by an advertising exec named Gary Dale Dial D A H L. Um He lived till 2015, but it was literally a smooth river stone packaged as a low maintenance pet. Gary Dahl, the advertising copywriter, who I was just talking about, who I didn't know how you say his name, um turned a bar joke into millions of dollars. Apparently the story goes in 1975, while drinking at a bar in Los Catos, California, Dahl or Dale, whatever, however you pronounce it, listened to friends complain about their real pets having to feed them, walk them, vet bills, you know, dog messes, pee. Um he basically was joking, but he declared his pet rock would was perfect. He had no care required, no misbehaviors, he doesn't die, he doesn't get sick. So as a struggling freelance copywriter, Dahl turned the gag into an actual product. The product was smooth sewn's sourced cheaply under a penny each at the time from a Mexican beach in Rizarita, Baja, California. Packaged in a cardboard pet carrier box with breathing holes and a nest of straw. Oh, they had it like a little birdhouse. Oh, look at that. That's nice. It's stupid, and you guys were done for paying for it. But like I said, I was born in 75, so that wouldn't be me. Um the uh the little box, little carrying birdhouse, included a little hilarious 32-page pet rock training manual with instructions on commands like sit, stay, roll over, play dead. Um pun's obviously humor. It was sold as satire. But people bought it up. People bought it up. The iconic original pet rock packaging, complete with straw bed and breathing holes. Man, look at that. Look at that. And the craze, the craze launched at a San Francisco gift show in August in 1975. After that, orders poured in from retailers like Neiman Marcus, media coverage exploded, Newsweek story, appearances on the Tonight Show twice. At the peak selling, they were selling a hundred thousand a day. Now, this is in 1975. And get this, they were priced at$3.95 back in 1975. That's about$23 today. That guy, Dahl, sold around 1.5 million units in six months. Wow. Wow. That's a whole lot of math if you do that math. If you do that money there, right there. That's a whole that's a whole lot. So um by February the next year, 1976, sales tanked, the novelties worn off, knockoffs flooded the market, the fad lasted about a year and a half, doll later tried to follow ups like sand breeding kits and red china dirt, but none matched the success of the pet rock. Perfectly captured post-Watergate cynicism and nineteen seventies irony. It was surely a brilliant marketing stunt, proving that people would buy packaged anything in the name of humor. Dahl himself called it a fantasy trip for bored consumers. Modern revivals exist even on Amazon to this day. But nothing beats the original's ridiculous glory. Truly one of America's dumbest with a hint of smartest fads in stupid American history. My name's B. Rob. This is Stupid American History. You're on the Food for Thought Faith Cast. And that was Food for Thought.

SPEAKER_02: 18:36

If you forgive me, and you believe that I mean I I'm truly sorry. I'm do my best not to ever do that again. You believe that, and then you forgive me. First order of business is for me to change the behavior that I have so I don't have to come say sorry again. That I think we miss sometimes. Sometimes you'll go, I'm sorry, forgiven. Oh, cool, for even. All right, back to it. And all of a sudden you're like, you do it again. Have a little room. I thought you were gonna course correct. You know, I've got a course correct. The offender's for the first order of business for the offender to go, I'm gonna do what I can not tell say I'm sorry to you.