Cooking Up a Disaster

Some of you may know that I kind of like to cook. I'm not so much on cooking peas and cornbread every day, but I'd rather try new recipes. My family, for the most part, enjoys being my guinea pigs. I'm not expecting to get my own Food Network show anytime soon, but usually what I cook gets eaten. I'm also one of those people who looks at most recipes as suggestions. I can recognize what ingredients or spices my family is likely not to enjoy, and I can substitute something else that we will like. Or, I may see that it needs bacon or cheese (most recipes do, by the way). Around ninety-five percent of the time, it turns out well. Sometimes, the dogs get a meal. Experiments work that way. That's part of the fun. I used to collect cookbooks, but the internet has been a benefit to my recipe collection. I can now collect thousands, maybe millions of recipes, and they don't clutter up my kitchen anymore.

I love reading recipes on the internet, but I often get aggravated. You see, I find recipes I like, and I should just stop there. But no, I feel compelled to read the comments others have made below the recipe. I'm not sure why I torture myself this way. Every once in a while, I get a nugget of inspiration from the comments. Someone may share some helpful tip, like that you can shred cooked chicken breasts with a mixer rather than the time consuming two fork method. But the few helpful tips I get don't compare with the comments from the people I like to call the lazies and the whiners (sometimes also known as the dummies when I'm not feeling generous).

The lazies don't want to try anything on their own, but they also don't want to follow the recipe. They comment along the lines of “The recipe calls for chicken, but all I have is veal. Will that work?” Or “Sure it says use defrosted ground beef, but mine's frozen, so can I throw it in the crock pot anyway? How do I adjust the cooking time for that?” Or my favorite: “It calls for ¾ teaspoon of cocoa, but I don't have a measuring spoon that says ¾. What do I do? And can I use Nestle Quick instead?” They want someone else to do their figuring for them, to try their substitutions for them, and to think for them so they don't have to bother. They seem to think it's the recipe writer's responsibility to rework the recipe for their individual circumstances. They are annoying, but they are still better than the whiners.

The whiners get to me. They go their own way, but then want to gripe about how it didn't work, as if it is the recipe writer's fault. They swap out sour cream for cream of chicken soup, add ½ cup of hot sauce, throw in some sugar, cut the water in half because it sounds like too much, and increase the cooking time by an extra 30 minutes because they read one time that someone went blind from eating food that wasn't quite done. Then they complain that it didn't turn out good, was a waste of their money, and the recipe author is obviously a hack.

Some recipe posters are nice and try to answer questions. Others just ignore the comments, likely to save their sanity. I'm afraid I might have a sarcastic response or two if it were me. But the whole situation makes me think of how we treat God sometimes. We like to go our own way, and complain to Him when it doesn't work out. “Sure God, I felt you telling me not to date that person, so I married them. And now they've treated me so bad. How could you let this happen to me?” “Well, God, I know you don't like this particular behavior, but I only do it because (insert lame excuse here). Surely you won't hold that against me, right?” Or “I know it's not the right way to act, God, but every one else is doing it and I don't want to seem weird. If I ask you to make it all turn out ok, then I'm covered, right?”

God's law is His law. It's not situational. It isn't individual. It's not relative. Asking Him to make it all right when you do something wrong isn't going to change His mind, or remove natural consequences. If we are too lazy to learn His law, or if we insist on doing things our way, then we certainly have no right to complain when we pay the price for our actions. If we insist on cooking up a disaster, God will let us.

What about you? Are you following God's recipe for righteous living, or are you going rogue?

Would You Prefer Life As A Robot?

We had a field trip to tour the Hyundai plant in Montgomery this week, and it was truly astounding. The plant manufactures only two car models, and they put out somewhere around 1,100 cars per day. PER DAY!! That number is astonishing to me. It only takes a car 18 hours to be completed from start to finish, and that includes the nine or so hours it takes for the paint to dry. I do not remember how many individual parts they told us it takes to make the car (somewhere over 3000), but I do know it's unbelievable it can be finished in that amount of time. The plant was the picture of efficiency. It is an assembly line of a magnitude that is hard to imagine without seeing it for yourself. Every single thing they do, every movement they make is designed to make things move more efficiently. There are some 400 robots that perform tasks to make it move faster, safer, and more precisely. The front seats are placed inside the vehicle by robots to prevent strain on a human worker, and to place them exactly in line. The windshield is precisely placed by a robot. There are even carts that pick up supplies and take them to stations, following paths laid out by cables under the floor, completely unmanned. The workers on the production line do one job for about two hours, making the same movement over and over and over. Then they move to another job for another two hours, now making a new movement over and over and over. This is to keep them from getting bored, fatigued, or inattentive. It may be a new movement, but it is still a very small difference. Imagine spending two hours just placing one part on a vehicle, over and over, and then the next two hours placing a different part. Every day, the same thing. There is no time to goof off, no time for chatter, no time for building a relationship with the person next to you on the line. You pick up a part, put it on, pick up a part, put it on. So basically, at the plant you have robots and you have people who act like robots.

I understand why the company has it's workers perform in this manner. The more efficient they can be, the more profitable the company is, the safer the workers are, the higher the quality and safety of the car, and the less room for mistakes. It makes sense, from the company's point of view. But from a human view, I can't imagine anything more dreary than doing one thing all...day....long. Being a somewhat creative person, the lack of individuality here would make me nuts. I do see where some people would enjoy the structure of never having to think or make a decision, never having to wonder what to do next. I am not that person. I thrive on spontaneity.

Sometimes people ask why God would give people choices. Why does He give them the option to be disobedient and then punish them for disobeying? It is a valid question, but it all comes down to love. The Hyundai worker doesn't install the glove box door because he likes Hyundai, or because he likes the car. He doesn't even do it because he likes the way it looks or he loves glove boxes with doors. He does it because he has to. He has no choice if he wants to keep his job. If God forced us to obey Him by not giving us another option, that would not be obedience. If we have no other option than to serve Him, that is not love. He desires our love, devotion, and adoration. None of those can be coerced. They must be given freely. As a mother, I am not impressed when my child does something because I am standing over them making them do it. In fact, I'm annoyed that I had to do so. But I am thrilled when they spontaneously do something that shows they are thinking of others. That is love. I am moved when they obey me when they don't know I know about it. That is devotion. I turn mushy when they do something to show they love me. That is adoration, on a small scale. God gave us choices, so that we could choose love. It makes life messier, more uncertain, and sometimes more difficult, but it also makes it worth living. Thank you Lord. And I do indeed love and adore You.

I'll Never Leave You (Unless You Don't Get In the Car)

It was a cold, windy, and dreary night. I was anxious to get in the car and get warm. I jumped in the passenger side and cranked up the heater. Tim was driving, and Ashley started to get in the back, but as we will see, she apparently decided to talk to one of her friends and closed the door as she walked off to say something. We left the church, on the way to get gas, and I started telling the kids about choir practice. “We're singing the song you like Ashley, the one we listened to all week on the new CD.” Silence from the backseat. I sigh, thinking she's pretending to be asleep. I continue a conversation with Tim as we get to the main highway. I finally ask Ashley about some clothes she was supposed to get from a friend that night. Silence. I look back, but can't see her because I think she is behind me. I see a lump, and think she is curled up, still pretending to sleep. Aggravated, I threaten to take her tablet away if she doesn't answer me. Silence. And everything explodes in my head, because I KNOW something is not right if she won't answer to that threat. I twist around and see that the lump is actually a pile of jackets. Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! I scream at Tim to go back, he has left my baby at church. By now we are at the 4-way stop of 10 and 5 and he's trying to figure out how to turn around legally. Now he wants to drive correctly??!! I make him spin the car around in the road and told him if the cops see us, they can follow us to church and deal with me, manic-mama. In my head, I see my baby, who in reality is ten and not a baby at all except to me, crying in the parking lot, crushed that we left her, thinking we won't come back, afraid, sobbing, terrified. Yes, I know, she's at church, the safest place I know, and there were people still there, and she'd be fine. I knew that in my head, but in my heart? In my heart I feel the pain of my baby girl, abandoned. Mama guilt is powerful.

When we finally make it back to church, after what felt like endless hours, although I suspect it was closer to two minutes, I find Ashley inside, along with several church members. Safe. Warm. Cared for. Loved. Did I mention safe? I could laugh at how ridiculous the situation was, and relieve all that built up stress. I could laugh when Ricky told me to take my phone off silent, he'd been trying to call me. Of course, the good church member I am, I had turned it off during church and choir practice. I never remember to turn it back on, they need to make a timer app for that. (Note to self: invent timer app for that and get rich, spend that money on tracking devices for my kids.) I could laugh, because it all turned out OK. And I could joke that I deserve the Mom-of-the-Year award. Hey, if Al Gore can win the Nobel Prize for his global warming work and President Obama can win the Nobel Peace Prize for.... um.....whatever it was, I should win an award of great honor for forgetting my child, right?

On the way home, as I was “explaining” to Tim that the driver is responsible for making sure everyone is in and buckled up, and I was “explaining” to Ashley that you don't start to get in, and then leave without telling anyone, and I was thanking God profusely for taking care of all of us, I couldn't help but think about how glad I am that He never misplaces us. He doesn't forget us somewhere, though it does feel like it sometimes. Ask the Israelites, stuck in slavery in Egypt for 400 years. Ask the man who's lost his job, the childless wife, the couple that fights constantly, the parent of the wayward child, the elderly person in the nursing home who no one visits and they just want to go home to Jesus. Sometimes it does feel like God has forgotten where we are and what we are going through. But He hasn't. I won't give you some pat answer for why people suffer. That's too deep for this devotion, but I will tell you with all certainty that God has not forsaken you, forgotten you, or overlooked you. I may have misplaced my Ashley for a short time, but God has not left you.