If you are from north of the Mason-Dixon line, please don’t leave!  I have converted not only several children, but several Northerners to this Southern delicacy.  It’s all about taking the problems and turning them to your advantage--and being patient.

            The problem with okra, if you’ll pardon the expression, is the slime.  One reason it was used in gumbos was its thickening power, which is a nicer way of referring to that viscous property.  My family just calls it what it is.  It doesn’t bother them because they know what I can do with that--stuff.

            Follow these directions closely.  Use a colander, not a bowl, when you slice it.  You will still get the goo on your knife and a little on your hands—my method won’t fix that—but it will disappear when you cook it.

            Slice it about a half inch thick, discarding the stem end and the tails.  If it has been in the fridge a few days, it might need a little coaxing to release some of its “juices.”  If so, put that colander in the sink and scatter a few drops of water here and there from a wet hand.  Don’t deluge it.  If it’s already good and gooey, don’t bother.  Sprinkle it with salt, then with flour, not corn meal.  (My mother taught me that and we are both GRITS—Girls Raised In The South.)  Stir it to coat.  Now walk away.  In five minutes come back.  If it’s dry, do the water trick again, just a sprinkle.  Add more salt and more flour and stir it again.  Walk away again.  You may need to do this several times, allowing the excess flour to fall through the holes in the colander into the sink where you can wash it away—loose flour will burn in the bottom of a skillet. 

            After about fifteen minutes and maybe as many as five applications of flour and salt, the flour will have adhered to the “slime” and, magically, the okra will have made its own batter.  It will stick together in clumps like caramel corn, which is exactly what you want.

            Heat a half inch of vegetable oil in a skillet—no higher than medium high.  Put in one piece of okra and wait till it starts bubbling and sizzling.  Slowly add only as much okra as there is room in the pan.  Since it tends to stick together, you will need to mash it out to spread it around.  Now walk away and leave it again.  No fiddling with it, no turning it, no stirring it. 

            In about ten minutes you will begin to see browning around the edges.  When that happens you can start turning it.  The second side will brown faster, as will the entire second batch.  Watch your oil; you may need to turn it down if the browning begins to happen too quickly.  Drain it on paper towels. 

            You will now have the crunchiest okra you ever ate.  No slime, no weird flavor, nothing but crunch.  You cannot eat this with a fork—it rolls off, or if you try to stab it, it shatters.  This is Southern finger food, a delicacy we eat at least twice every summer before we start pickling it or giving it away.  Too much fried food is not healthy they tell us, but everyone needs a lube job once in awhile.

            The trick to that okra is patiently using the problem itself to overcome it—given enough time, that slime makes a batter that is better than anything you could whip up on your own with half a dozen ingredients.

            Patience is a virtue for Christians too, not just cooks.  How do you make it through suffering?  You patiently endure it (2 Cor 1:6), and you remember its purpose and use it for that purpose.  Patiently enduring suffering will make you a joint-heir with Christ (Rom 8:17,18).  It will make you worthy of the kingdom (2 Thes 1:4,5).  If we suffer with him, we will reign with him (2 Tim 2:12).  Only those who share in his suffering will share in his comfort (2 Cor 1:7). 

            But none if this works if you don’t patiently endure the suffering.  If you give up, you lose.  If you turn against God, he will turn against you.  If you refuse the fellowship of Christ’s suffering, he will refuse you.  We must use that suffering to make ourselves stronger and worthy to be his disciple. Just like I am happy to have a particularly “slimy” bowl of okra to worth with, knowing it will produce the crunch I want, the early Christians “rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer,” Acts 5:41.  They knew it would make them better disciples of their Lord.  We can understand these things when it comes to something as mundane as fried okra.  Why can’t we recognize it in far more important matters?  We even have a trite axiom about this—when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  When life gives you trials, make yourself a stronger person.

            After suffering, Peter promises that God will restore, confirm, strengthen and establish us (1 Pet 5:10).  He is talking to those who endure, who use the suffering to their advantage and become better people.  Remind yourself of the promises God gives to those who suffer.  Remind yourself of the rewards.  Remind yourself every day that it’s worth it.  The New Testament writers did, so it is no shame if you do it too.
 
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Rom 8:16-18.
 
Dene Ward

Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite television cook is Ina Garten of “The Barefoot Contessa.”  I have saved very few recipes from the Food Channel, but of the few I have, the vast majority is hers. 

            One of my favorites is her “Ultimate Ginger Cookie.”  This is just about my favorite cookie ever, which is saying a lot for a cookie that doesn’t have chocolate in it.  It’s a chewy cookie, something else I like, and I have added my own little twist by rolling the balls of dough in sparkling sugar before baking them.  But what makes it “ultimate?”  Not only does it have powdered ginger in it, but also over half a cup of chopped crystallized ginger.  There is no question what kind of cookie this is—it’s a ginger cookie.

            I have several recipes with that word “ultimate” in the title.  My “Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie” is good too.  Not only does it have half again more chocolate chips than the usual recipe, but two kinds, bittersweet and milk chocolate.  My “Ultimate Fudge Brownie” is maximum chocolate with minimal flour.  My “Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookie” has no flour at all—just gobs of peanut butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla.  Do you get the picture?  “Ultimate” in a recipe means “a lot,” “more than usual,” and “well above average.”  “Ultimate” means there is no question what kind of cookie this is.

            I started thinking about the word “Christian” in that context.  Technically speaking, the word means “a disciple of Christ.”  That is not the way we use it today.  “Christian” gets tacked on to anything that is even remotely religious.  People can claim to be Christians just because they believe in a few of the Ten Commandments, which in itself is ironic when you understand the relationship of Christ to the Old Law.  In our vernacular, Christians do not even have to be members of a church.

            To keep that from rubbing off on us, maybe we should start thinking in terms of recipes.  We should be “Ultimate Christians.”  If we are really followers of Christ we should be different from those who merely claim the name with a few allusions to prayer and God in their vocabulary.

            Real disciples of Christ, by the definition of the word “disciple,” are trying to be as much like their teacher as possible.  They talk like he does and behave like he does.  They know what commitment means—they serve as he did, sacrifice as he did, and fight the Devil like he did every day of his life.  In fact, they are not afraid to acknowledge the devil as a real and dangerous being (like He did), even when others laugh at them for doing so.  They condemn hypocrisy, especially among those who try to claim the same discipleship. They abhor sin, yet seek the vilest sinners in their own environment, knowing they are the ones who need their Master the most.  They have compassion on the ill, the hated, and the lost.  They will yield their lives to their Teacher by yielding their rights to others.  They live by the Word of God, take comfort in the Spirit of God, and glory in their fellowship with them.  In every decision, every event, and every aspect of their lives, they ask themselves how their Lord would have handled it.  They are completely consumed with the spiritual; nothing else matters.

            So, the question today is are we Christians in the modern vernacular, or are we real Christians, “Ultimate Christians?”  Maybe if more of us started showing the world what the word “Christian” really means, we could stop making distinctions. 
 
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked...A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher, 1 John 2:6; Luke 6:40.
 
For the recipe accompanying this post, click > Dene's Recipes page 

Dene Ward

I had a great writing teacher and I still remember the things she taught me.  One of the best things she ever said, was, “Don’t fall in love with your own words.”
 
           I had a habit of going off on tangents, especially in expository writing.  I kept making asides, ideas that had nothing to do with my main point.  “You are confusing people,” she said.  “Your main point is coming across as one of several in a list instead of something vital.  If those other things are that important, make a whole new essay about each of them.  If they aren’t important enough for that, they certainly aren’t important enough to ruin what is important.”

            I have tried to follow that advice for nearly forty years now.  It is a lesson speakers need as well.  While tutoring home-schoolers, preachers “in training,” and a few “full-fledged” preachers with their writing, I have finally come up with the perfect analogy.  Grab a can of orange juice concentrate and read the directions.  Pour the concentrate into the pitcher and add three cans of water.  Guess what happens if you add more than three cans?  You dilute the juice, and the more you add the weaker it gets.  Before long you just have orange-colored water. 

            When you have a point to make and use too many words to say it or drown it in a sea of words that do not apply, you weaken your point.  A short pithy statement will stay in people’s minds long after they finish reading (or listening).

            The same thing is true in life.  When we need to rebuke someone don’t we add all sorts of extra words to soften the blow?  Often that is a good idea.  Just the right amount (three cans) can help someone listen to what they need to hear.  But sometimes we add so many that they go away agreeing with us, never realizing it was them we were talking about.  What was that statement Nathan made to David?  “Thou art the man.”  Four little words pierced David’s heart to the core.  We often forget to say that part, not because we are wise and loving, but because we are cowards, not loving enough to say what needs to be said.

            Then there is this sad fact of life:  the more you talk, the more likely you are to put your foot in your mouth.  That is why I try not to judge preachers, elders, and Bible class teachers.  Their job is to talk.  Inevitably something will come out wrong.  Be kind in your assessments.

            Be careful out there.  The more you talk, the more likely you are to hurt someone, the more likely you are to embarrass yourself (and your spouse), and the more likely you are to sin with your tongue.  But when the time comes to speak, be careful not to add too much water to the juice out of fear, but just the right amount to help someone find his way back to the Lord.  God wants pure orange juice Christians.  If He will spew out lukewarm Christians, surely He will spew out the orange-colored water Christians as well.
 
Be not rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven and you upon earth: therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with a multitude of business, and a fool's voice with a multitude of words, Eccl 5:2,3.
 
Dene Ward

I have several recipes that call for making a reduction sauce as the last step.  The pan in which the meat was cooked is filled with broth or some other thin liquid, the drippings in the pan deglazed, then the sauce boiled down to half or less the original volume, and herbs or perhaps a pat of butter whisked in at the end.  Not only is the sauce thickened, but most important of all, the flavors are concentrated.  I have heard trained chefs say that the reduction sauce can make or break the final product.

           I love those passages in the Bible where the writer seems to boil down a complex situation into two or three simple things.  Suddenly everything becomes clear.  I know what is important because the complex flavors are concentrated enough for me to distinguish them.

            Micah writes what has to be the best of these concentrated passages in 6:6-8.  With what shall I come before Jehovah and bow myself before the high God?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?  Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  He has shown you, o man, what is good, and what does Jehovah require of you but to do justly, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

`           Far from releasing us from the minute details of God’s law, it says this, “Be righteous, be kind to others, and be humble before God.”  What kind of man will argue with God about what He requires, or even consider that any part of His law does not need obeying?  Certainly not a humble one.

            James boils it down 1:27.  Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and keep oneself unspotted from the world. As is the case in many of this type of passage, the widows and orphans are symbolic of anyone who needs help.  In that day and time they were the helpless ones, the ones their society often ignored and oppressed, so it was natural to use them as a synecdoche.  Be kind to others, James said, and later on in more detail (chapter 2), help those who need your help, no matter what kind of help that might be, no matter how rich or poor, how important or unimportant by the world’s standards.  But don’t forget to keep yourself pure, he adds, which can cover the gamut—anything from sexual immorality to sins of the heart to disobedience of any command of God.  In seventeen words, he covers it all.  Amazing.

            Those verbal reductions are powerful.  A list of commands or sins can often become ho-hum when we read them.  Something in us instantly tries to categorize them and rank them.  It becomes a matter of “what I can get away with” instead of what I need to do to be pleasing to God.  But boil it down to a few words and suddenly it is all important.  I need to focus on it all because it all hangs together or falls apart, something many of the Pharisees, and many of us, never seem to understand.

            Those sauces poured over the dish right before serving have ceased to be individual ingredients.  Instead they have become something else entirely, an amalgamation of ingredients blended so well they never separate.  The goal for us is to become something new too, a person who no longer has to think about whether he will do right or wrong, but who automatically does it—a new creature who concentrates on goodness to man and humility before God, no longer questioning but instantly obeying from the heart.

            Do you need a little more boiling?   
 
And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?  [And so Jesus himself boiled it down to this] You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets, Matt 22:35-40.
 
Dene Ward

A cooking magazine I read used to run a page of embarrassing mistakes its readers had made in the kitchen.  I probably could have kept the page going for several years single-handedly.
 
           I tend to become flustered when I have company.  We had an older couple over for Sunday dinner once, sweet, kind people whom I should never have been nervous about at all.  Everything was going well as I slid my homemade crescent rolls into the oven.  Twelve minutes later I peeked in to see how they were doing and was horrified.  I had covered them with a linen kitchen towel during their last rise and had forgotten to take it off.

            I pulled them out, managed to remove the towel without mutilating my rolls, and slid them back in, but the damage was already done.  They never did fully rise, instead becoming heavy and doughy and tasting faintly of freshly ironed cotton.  “I thought maybe it was a new-fangled method I hadn’t heard about before,” said my sweet friend.  Indeed—a new-fangled method that did not work very well at all.

            Then there was the time I put a ten pound ham in the oven and very carefully set the oven timer backwards.  Instead of starting at 10:00 and cooking till 12:30, it was rigged to come on at 12:30 and cook till 10:00.  My twelve guests and I walked in at 12:15 to a stone cold ham.  Aren’t microwaves wonderful?  I sliced off enough to go around once, zapped them, and called everyone to the table while the rest finished nuking.  At least I had managed to get everything else done on time.

            And who could forget the first meal I cooked for Keith after our honeymoon?  I pulled the meat loaf out of the oven, holding that brand new Pyrex loaf pan between those slick new oven mitts.  I turned around a bit too quickly and, as I did, that pan slid out of my grasp and sailed across the room landing upside down in the floor behind the table.  Keith managed to duck, but it was a portentous way to begin married life.

            Yet all those embarrassing moments, and many, many others, are stories we laugh about now.  In fact, most of them we were laughing about the same day, often within minutes of their occurrence.  Look how well-balanced we are.  No arrogance here, no stubborn pride.  We can learn from our mistakes, even laugh at ourselves.

            But let one person dare to disagree with us about a spiritual matter and that’s a completely different story.  Our minds are made up; we won’t listen; we instantly dismiss any scriptural evidence we cannot otherwise explain away with, “That’s different.”

            Let anyone dare to tell us we might have erred in our actions and things are even worse.  Instantly we counterattack; instantly we rationalize; instantly we blame that person for our failure to behave as a Christian.  If he had told us differently, we would have listened.  Really now?

            I can hear you and yes, you are right—these are NOT laughing matters, but that makes it even more important that we NOT get too angry to listen, or too ”hurt” to examine ourselves objectively.  I can tell tales about my mistakes in the kitchen over and over, but heaven forbid (or is it some other place?) I actually consider another side to a disagreement or scrutinize my own actions and their motives.

            Why can’t we share stories of change and enlightenment in spiritual matters?  Why can’t we thank the ones who told us we were wrong instead of telling everyone else how horrible they are?  Why is it that the very thing we say all the time, “I know I’m not perfect,” is the last thing we will ever admit?

            Perhaps it’s because we don’t really believe it.
 
He is in the way of life who heeds correction; but he who forsakes reproof errs.  He who hearkens to the reproof of life shall abide among the wise.  He who refuses correction despises his own soul; but he who hearkens to reproof gets understanding, Prov 10:17; 15:31,32.
           
Dene Ward

I do not understand the recent fascination with cupcakes.  To me a special cake is huge, having three layers, interesting ingredients that make it moist and flavorful, and a filling as well as a frosting.  Then I found a recipe for dark chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache filling, and a sour cream chocolate frosting.  Okay, I thought, maybe these cupcakes are worth eating.
            I spent two afternoons working on these things, two wasted afternoons as it turns out.  Something happened to my chocolate ganache filling, and I still don’t know what it was.  Maybe I stubbed my toe when I measured the heavy cream and got a half teaspoon too much.  Maybe I crossed my eyes when I weighed the chocolate and used half an ounce too little.  Whatever it was, it ruined the cupcakes.  The picture showed a cupcake cut in half with a rich, creamy filling clearly visible.  Mine had a hole in the center where the filling was supposed to have been.  True, your taste buds could tell something else had once been there, but it was not there any longer, and we couldn’t find it anywhere.  It had simply disappeared, leaving me with just another cupcake, and I was supremely disappointed.
            I wonder if God does not sometimes feel the same about us.  Yes, we must live in a world of sin and evil and hatred and all sorts of villainy.  But He expects us to stand untainted, obviously different than those around us.  Too often we just melt into the crowd.  Maybe you could tell we had once been there—maybe someone remembers a person who was a little different than everyone else, but if he can no longer be found, how long will that influence last? Someone who disappears so easily will not be remembered long.
            We are the sweet filling in the middle of a sinful world.  We should be plainly visible.  We should make the world a better place to live.  Everyone should be scrambling to get to the good stuff—us!  Our speech, our actions, our forgiving nature and calming influence, the fact that we actually stand for something and stand firm in it, rather than going along with the popular notions of right and wrong which change with the seasons—those things ought to make us easy to see, not easily camouflaged. 
            Make sure you stand out.  Make sure you don’t become part of an amalgamation that makes you just another face in the crowd, a hole where something special used to be.
 
So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.  Do all things without murmurings and questionings; that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life…Phil 2:12-16.
 
Dene Ward

I had heard of “Dutch cocoa” for a long time, assuming it was a special kind made in the Netherlands.  I finally discovered that “dutch” has nothing to do with its origin.  “Dutching” is a process which removes some of the acid from the cocoa, supposedly enhancing its browning ability and making the chocolate flavor more pronounced.  I found some a few years ago and proceeded to make all my usual chocolate recipes, expecting them to be transformed into something even more wonderful than before.  I was disappointed.  Everything turned nearly black, looking and tasting exactly like Oreos.  Aha!  At least I had discovered that Nabisco uses dutched cocoa to give those iconic cookies their signature flavor and color.
 
           I am afraid that, at least in this area, I remain plebeian and unrefined.  I do not want my Mississippi Mud Cake, my Texas Sheet Cake, my Wellesley Fudge Cake, nor even my plain old fudge brownies to taste like Oreos.  And the frosting on a chocolate cake should never be darker than the cake—it is just not right somehow.

            I find that is the way I feel about a lot of things.  Dumplings should be flat, not puffy, waterlogged biscuits; cookies should be chewy or crisp, never cakey; and tea should be sweet, not bitter, while coffee should be black, not sweet. 

            And in the spiritual arena, Bible classes should be classes.  I need to attend with a mindset to learn, not to show off how much I already know.  Would we ever allow our children to teach their own classes from their desks?  Yet for some reason we think that those old “read a verse and comment” classes are great.  The more people talk, the better the class, some say, when often the opposite is true.  When one verse is divorced from its context, all sorts of strange concepts arise.  The more people talk, the more confused the babes in Christ may become.  And really, shouldn’t what the teacher has spent hours preparing be far better than anything any of us can come up with off the cuff?  Discussion is one thing; allowing the students to teach the class is quite another.

            The word “class” necessarily involves hearing something new, or at least challenging.  It may mean I have to think deeper thoughts than usual, that I may actually need to go home and study on my own to fully appreciate what I have been told.  Yikes!  I might actually need to put in a little more effort than sitting on a pew for an hour.

            In the same vein, sermons should be sermons, not Rotary Club talks.  Once again that involves the idea of being challenged to be a better person, to change some area of my life, even, perhaps, to admit wrong at least to myself and God.  Can’t have that, can we?  Why, someone might be offended.  If no one ever goes away offended (in our use of the term, not the Bible’s), I think it is a safe bet that a real sermon has never been preached.  “Thou art the man,” is difficult to say without someone knowing he is being confronted.

            So stop expecting Oreos where there should be none.  They are fine in their place, usually with a glass of milk at the kitchen table, but don’t put them on the menu at a four star restaurant.   

            We should feel that way whenever anyone tries to insult our intelligence with Bible classes that are not classes and sermons that are not sermons.  We should want the pure, unadulterated word of God “in season and out of season,” which translates, “whether we want to hear it or not,” whether it is easy or not, and we should want to go deeper and deeper, applying it in our lives, finally transforming us into what God would have us be. 
 
And they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading.  And all the people went their way to eat and to drink, and to send portions and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them, Neh 8:8,12.
 
Dene Ward

Have you finished the leftover turkey marathon yet?  Turkey pot pie, turkey divan, turkey enchiladas, turkey soup, turkey salad, and anything else that will use up a good-sized portion of that leftover bird.  It seems they all have something in common—some sort of sauce, gravy, or broth to make the endlessly heated up, dried out meat palatable.  If you like turkey leftovers, it is not the turkey you like—it is what the turkey becomes, a new dish with flavorful moist ingredients that fill you up and satisfy your hunger.  You can only reheat unadorned meat so many times before it turns into sawdust.

           While my family enjoys leftover turkey dishes, God most emphatically does not like leftovers. 

            If you are a gardener, you understand the concept of first-fruits.  The first pickings, like the first serving of turkey, are always the best.  By the end of the summer the beans are tough, the corn is starchy, the squash is wormy, and the tomatoes are small and hard or half-rotten.  That is why you doll them up in casseroles and sauces.  I always make the tomato sauce in July.  The June tomatoes are ripe, sweet and juicy, far too good to turn into sauce.

            God has always expected the first-fruits from His people. The first of the first-fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Jehovah your God, Ex 23:19.  He expected the first-fruits of everything to be given to His servants, the priests, who waited on Him night and day, And this shall be the priests' due from the people, from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep, that they shall give unto the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw. The first-fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, shall you give him, Deut 18:3,4.

            The Israelites in Malachi’s day discovered exactly how God felt about offerings that were less than the best.  You offer polluted bread upon my altar. And you say, Wherein have we polluted you? In that you say, The table of Jehovah is contemptible. And when you offer the blind for sacrifice, it is no evil! And when you offer the lame and sick, it is no evil! Present it now to your governor; will he be pleased with you? Or will he accept you? says Jehovah of hosts, Mal 1:7,8..

            We usually cite these verses when it comes time to put money in the plate.  Certainly we should be planning ahead, “purposing in our hearts” what we will give to God, rather than reaching for the leftover change in our pockets.  But what about the rest of our “offerings?”

            Too many of us give God our leftover time.  Rather than planning to pray and study, scheduling time in the week to care for our brothers and sisters in need, and putting our assemblies at the top of our agendas, we wait till we have finished what we consider necessary, then look to see if we can give any time and energy to God.  Usually it is too late, or we are too tired, or something else that really cannot be rescheduled takes the last few minutes of our day.  If there is time, we are tired, our energy flagging and our concentration poor.  No wonder some of the children I have taught in Bible classes treat the concept of a family Bible study as something unheard of.  No wonder the adults in Bible classes sit close-mouthed with little to offer to edify their brothers and sisters, or spout out something that even a quick study of scripture would prove to be wrong.

            It only makes sense for us to give God our best.  God has given us His best too, an only begotten Son, the firstfruits of them that are asleep, 1 Cor 15:20, as a hope of the resurrection.

            God not only expects us to give our first-fruits, he expects us to be one. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures, James 1:18.  Maybe that is the problem—our lives do not match the concept.  Instead, we are the blemished fruit, the tough, small, wormy, and half-rotten.  How can we give God anything else when that is all we have to offer?  This business of leftover offerings covers far more than the collection plate, far more than we would like to believe.

            Turkey leftovers are one thing.  They have a place, especially in the lives of those trying to be good stewards of their blessings.  But leftovers in my service to God might as well be fed to the dog.
 
Honor Jehovah with your substance, and with the first-fruits of all your increase: So shall your barns be filled with plenty, and your vats shall overflow with new wine, Prov 3:8,9.
 
Dene Ward

The other day I was talking with a friend who loves to cook as much as I do.  We both spoke of how much more fun it is to cook for people who were not picky eaters.  When all that effort sits in the bowls and platters on the table with scarcely a dent made in them because this one prefers this and that one prefers that, it is hard not to be offended.  The very fact that I know so many more picky eaters these days than I did as a child emphasizes how wealthy this society has become.  Hungry people are not picky eaters.

            Real hunger is not a concept we understand.  We eat by the clock instead of by our stomachs, which may be the biggest reason so many of us are overweight.  If we only ate when we were truly hungry, would we eat too much on a regular basis?  A celebratory feast, which used to happen only once or twice or year, has become a weekly, if not daily, occurrence for many.

            And because we do not understand true physical hunger, we cannot understand Jesus’ blessing upon those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.  We think being willing to sit through one sermon a week makes us worthy, when that is probably the shallowest application of that beatitude.  We don’t want a spiritual feast.  We want something light, with fewer calories, requiring little effort to eat.  In fact, sometimes we want to be fed too.  Spiritual eating has become too much trouble.

            How many of us skip Bible classes?  How many daydream during the sermons, plan the afternoon ahead, even text message each other?  If more than one adult class is offered on Sunday mornings, how many choose the one that requires more study or deeper thinking?  When extra classes are offered during the week, what percentage of the church actually chooses to attend?  How many of us are actively pursuing our own studies at home, studies beyond that needed for the Sunday morning class?  If we won’t even eat the meals especially prepared for us by others, how in the world will be seek righteousness on our own and how will we ever progress past simple Bible study in satisfying our spiritual hunger?

            Picky eaters suddenly become omnivores when they really need to eat.  For some reason we think we can fast from spiritual food and still survive.  Amazing how we can deceive ourselves so easily. 

            So, what’s on your menu today, or have you even planned one?
 
Oh how love I your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers; for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have kept your precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might observe your word. I have not turned aside from your ordinances; for You have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste! sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. Psalm 119:97-104.
 
Dene Ward

I grew up watching my mother make her own pie crust.  It never crossed my mind that might be unusual, that there were convenience products, including ready-made pie crusts, at the grocery store.  So I was thoroughly spoiled as a child.  Homemade pie crust was all I ever had.

            Unfortunately, I married and moved a thousand miles away without getting that recipe and the special instructions that probably went along with it.  I lived closer to my in-laws then and, as luck would have it, they had owned a small town bakery, so I asked them for their recipe.  What I got was a ratio; otherwise I would have wound up with a recipe beginning, “fifty pounds of flour…”  It went like this:  half as much shortening as flour, half as much water as shortening.

            It took a few years, but I finally got the hang of it.  I also discovered the proper ratio of salt (a scant teaspoon per two cups of flour), the advantage of ice water rather than plain tap water (it makes the crust flakier), and the need to handle the dough as little as possible if you want to be able to eat it instead of use it as a Frisbee.

            I still have a little difficulty passing this recipe along.  You see, flour changes according to the humidity.  If it has soaked up moisture from the air, it will take less water.  How do you tell?  By the way it feels.  How does it feel?  Here the problem lies.  When everything is right, it feels right, that’s how you tell.  But how does “right” feel?  It feels like pie crust dough that is “right.”  There is no way to describe it if you haven’t ever put your hands in it before.

            The same thing happens when I am trying to help a person with just about any recipe—biscuits, cookie dough, cake batter, gravy, cream sauce—when it’s right, you know it.  In fact, when teaching someone to make gravy or béchamel, I have to take the spoon from them into my hand and give it a stir so I can feel it in order to really know.  That’s why I never make my pastry crust in a food processor—I can’t feel it! 

            The trick is to do it over and over and over for years.  That’s how you know what “right” is.  Yes, you must have a good recipe, but even a good recipe can turn out wrong if you are not familiar with it.

            Do you want to know how to avoid false doctrine?  It has nothing to do with studying every possible false teaching out there.  You would have no time for it.  What you do is study the real thing over and over and over for years.  Then when the false one comes along it won’t feel quite the same, and you will suddenly catch yourself saying, “Unh, unh.  Something’s not right here.”  Because you are so familiar with what “right” is, you will have far less trouble seeing what “wrong” is.

            Learning the facts may seem formalistic.  It may seem like our religion is lacking some “heart.”  Don’t be so quick to judge.  Some of the people most likely to be taken captive by false prophets are those who love the whir and excitement of “food processor” religion.  “Wow!  Look at it go.  Look how fast it comes together.  This must surely be the real thing.”  It is certainly more rousing than watching someone cut a cup of shortening into 2 cups of flour with a handheld pastry blender, up and down, over and over, for several tedious minutes.  But that food processor religion is more likely to be tough and overworked or wet and hard to handle, while the handmade religion will separate into flaky layers of depth, and rival the filling itself for the starring role. 

            There is no short cut for this kind of experience.  If it takes years of handling pastry crust to reach this level of comfortable, secure familiarity, God’s word certainly won’t be any easier, but what should we expect?  God didn’t write pulp fiction.
 
And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment; so that you may distinguish the things that differ; that you may be sincere and void of offence unto the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God, Phil 1:9-11.
 
Dene Ward