When The Daily Grind is the Only Way

Saturday afternoon found me trapped in the kitchen making my mother-in-law's special potato salad recipe for Sunday dinner.  Like many dishes that are made from scratch, it is memorable and unparalleled by anything I've ever bought at any restaurant or store.  In other words, it's worth it in the end.

The secret to this dish's success is what makes it so frustrating and time consuming--no shortcuts.  Believe me.  I've tried.

Try and mince the celery in the food processor and it's more soggy, irregular-sized mush than crunch.  Use pre-chopped onions?  More mush.  Use the mandolin chopper with your five pounds of red potatoes, and the consistent-sized cubes are too small so that post-boiling, they tend to fall apart.  More mush.  And fresh boiled eggs don't peel themselves--no shortcut possible for that step.

Unless you're Rachael Ray with everything minced, chopped, boiled, and peeled by your expert staff off stage before your thirty minute show begins, this recipe alone will keep you in the kitchen for a solid hour.  It sounds ridiculous to invest such a large amount of time into a single side dish you can buy by the tub at the grocery store.  But the longhand labor is necessary.

Slow step by slow step, I craft a culinary masterpiece that turns mere food to be consumed into food to be savored.

This isn't how we generally look at food or life in general for that matter.  We're always looking for a shortcut, a faster, easier way to get from point A to point B, to achieve X result.

I am guilty of sometimes even trying to take shortcuts when it comes to my relationship with God--cramming a week's worth of Bible study into a couple days, shoving a day's worth of prayer to the very end...all the while expecting the same results as if I had studied His Word  every day of the week instead of just a few, as if I had prayed all throughout the day instead of just at bedtime.

But our relationship with God doesn't work that way.  No matter how hard we may wish for one, there are no shortcuts to a relationship with God, no shortcuts to becoming a mirror image of Christ.

Instead, once we have the cornerstone of Christ as our foundation, the only way to build the walls of that relationship is one stone at a time.  The Word of the Lord  is given to us precept upon precept, manageable only one stone at a time.
In Isaiah's day, the people ridiculed the prophet for his manner of teaching them God's Word.  They felt Isaiah was trying to teach them the basics, much like a baby, and complained, "To whom would He teach knowledge, And to whom would He interpret the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just taken from the breast? For He says, 'Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there'" (Is. 28:9-10).

The Message paraphrase of the same verses says, "We’re not babies in diapers to be talked down to by such as you—‘Da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s a good little girl,that’s a good little boy"

And yet, since the children of Israel refused to listen to even the most basic, childlike lessons from the mouth of God's prophet, this is exactly how God said He would speak to them, though through a foreign tongue of their oppressors and through judgment: "He who said to them, 'Here is rest, give rest to the weary,' And 'Here is repose,' but they would not listen. So the word of the Lord to them will be, 'Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there'" (Is. 28:12-13).  

In these verses, God offered His children "rest."  He offered them "repose."  The requirement, though, was that they trust in Him, that they listen to His Word and obey it. 

They needed to listen to and learn those foundational truths in order to proceed to the more difficult truths of God.  Yet, since man can only build upon what he already knows and God's children really didn't know too much in their hearts, God had to start again to lay the groundwork before starting up on the walls.

God told them, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed.  He who believes in it will not be disturbed" (Is. 28:16).

This is Jesus, our firm foundation, the one God was sending to a people who would not listen, who did not want to be taught from the ground up.

As much as our flesh wants to shortcut everything, we must commit ourselves to the daily grind of the Christian walk with Jesus if we want a real relationship with Him.  This means learning precept upon precept, not considering any Word too childish for our learning, returning again and again to those foundational truths, and listening to both the deep and the deceptively simple messages we think we have already learned from God.

It is only in this long walk that we will be transformed, sanctified, and made righteous like Christ.

Are You Smarter than a Donkey?

No, I wasn't buying the stuffed bird for her with my money, no matter how cute, how fluffy, and how female it was.  And no, she didn't have any money left, so this wasn't up for discussion.  Period.

My five year old daughter's face screwed up in a serious pout when I pulled from her grasp the disputed red sphere (complete with yellow bow and dark black eyelashes) and stuffed it back on the shelf.  As if on cue, out popped the lower lip, down, down, DOWN went the corners of her mouth, and those large brown eyes glistened with confirmation of how upset she was.

Unlike the boys who continued to be indecisive in their spending of what monies they earned from the selling of a few unused toys before Christmas, my daughter had already spent every last cent of her earnings, all within two weeks' time.  Granted, what she wanted cost more (a "pony house" for her Oma & Opa-gifted American Girl doll and horse), but still, she was flat broke and finding it was hard to watch her brothers shop without being able to buy anything, herself.

This mother, though, wasn't having having it.  Fresh off an extraordinarily blessed Christmas full of much more than my daughter either needed or deserved, I demanded she tuck that lip back in and better not cry.   Right in the middle of Walgreens, I explained how her attitude showed how ungrateful her heart was.

Ingratitude.  It's one of the things that grates most on this parent's nerves.  Perhaps that's because it is something I find myself fighting against with ever fiber of my being.  In our "more, more" culture, I strive to be content with what is and not what could be.

What's more, I have learned how offensive ingratitude is to the Lord.

The Lord says of Israel: "Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand....They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged" (Is. 1:2-3, 4b).

The ox and the donkey are not the smartest of animals.  In fact, they're just plain dumb.

As Matthew Henry says, they are "not only brute creatures, but of the dullest sort; yet the ox has such a sense of duty as to know his owner and to serve him, to submit to his yoke and to draw in it; the ass has such a sense of interest as to know has master’s crib, or manger, where he is fed, and to abide by it; he will go to that of himself if he be turned loose."*

In short, these two dumb creatures know (1) how to submit to their Creator and (2) Who provides for them.

Yet, in the above verses, the nation of Israel is condemned because of its failure to do what comes naturally to God's most base creatures--(1) submit to God as Master of them as their Creator and (2) give thanks to God for His constant provisions.

Insubordination and Ingratitude. 

We don't like to take on any yoke, even if God says, "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matt. 11:30).  We want to live like children in a fantasy world of freedom where we're not subordinate to anyone, where we are always free to do as we wish, not owing anyone for anything because everything we have is ours from our own labors.

Such fantasies are just that--make-believe fairy tales.  No matter how we try to deny it, we are forever indebted to God as our Creator.  If we choose to not serve Him, that just means we're serving someone/something else.  Total freedom is simply not an option.  And no matter how much we must labor for our provisions, He is still the ultimate provider of all.

Submission, gratitude, and thankfulness don't come naturally; they must be an intentional daily pursuit.  Yet, as with most habits, the more we practice, the more second nature it becomes.

What better time to start developing those good habits than today.

*Matthew Henry Complete Commentary