Re-Writing the Directions

I had something happen this week that I think is a first in my 40 years of marriage. I made 2 meals in 3 days that were failures. My husband is wonderful in that he will eat anything, and we did eat the dishes that I had prepared, but I threw the rest away! They were that bad.

With all of these years of experience and a lot of awesome, tried-and-true recipes, I love to cook and bake, and I have to say in all honesty that I have become a pretty good cook. Both of these meals, however, were new dishes. And, in both cases, I changed the ingredients or the directions.

The first time, I was looking for something to use up leftover ham and broccoli. I thought that a ham, broccoli, pasta and cheese casserole sounded like a good combination. And it probably would have been - if I had followed a recipe. I did look for a recipe online and found what looked like a promising one, but it called for a jar of Alfredo sauce which I did not want to use - too unhealthy - and I didn't have one anyway. I thought if I just added a bit of half and half that would work for a sauce. It didn't. I also didn't bother to add much seasoning. Not good.

The second meal, I decided to make Eggplant Parmesan. My husband loves eggplant and I had picked one up at a farmer's market when we were in Pennsylvania last week, and needed to use it up. We have had eggplant parmesan in restaurants and usually really like it. I noticed that all the recipes called for breading the eggplant slices before baking them. I thought that because I am gluten free, I could skip that part and as long as I pre-baked the eggplant slices it wouldn't make much of a difference. It did. I ended up with a soggy, liquid-y dish that bore little resemblance to eggplant parmesan!

As I have been reflecting on these mishaps, it dawned on me that my experience is very similar to what we sometimes do in our spiritual lives. In both cases, I had a recipe I could have followed but I chose not to. I thought that I knew better. We know what the right thing to do is, or we know what we are supposed to do, but we decide that we can make changes. We re-write the instructions and do a lot of rationalizing. We reason that it really won't make much of a difference. We treat the Bible and Christianity like a recipe that we skip steps or ingredients, or change the directions, and then we wonder why we don't have success.

I think about the children of Israel as they were in the wilderness, and God provided them with manna to eat. He also provided them with some very specific directions. They were to gather only what they needed each day, in the exact amount they needed. Of course, some of them decided they could do things better. Can't you identify with them? "Why should I go out and gather manna every morning, when I can just gather two days' worth at once? That saves time and is a whole lot more efficient!" They changed the directions. God also told them not to gather on the Sabbath but to gather extra the day before. Some of the Israelites had to test that out by not gathering extra and going out on the Sabbath morning anyway. Of course they came up empty-handed.

Some verses I think of are Proverbs 3:5-6, which tells us to not depend on our own understanding and in all our ways to acknowledge God and let Him direct our path. But the one that I think really applies here is Joshua 1:8, which gives us the key to success: "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shall mediate on it day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein: for then thou shall make thy way prosperous, and then thou shall have good success." (Italics mine)

The lesson here? The next time you are tempted to skip steps or change the directions, don't. There aren't any short-cuts - in cooking or in obedience to God.

Blessings,
Kathi