Yesterday was a busy day. I had work from 9-6 and then Worship Practice from 7-9. Since I live 10 minutes from work and church I knew that it would be a push to get home from work at 6:15, fix dinner and back to church by 7:00. So i moved practice to 7:30pm and stuck a pan of frozen chicken in the over before leaving for work and set the stove to turn on around 4:00 and bake so that my family could eat at the normal time and I could quick-grab a bite before leaving for practice.
I don't use that feature on my stove much, but I thought I remembered how it worked so i pushed all the buttons I thought I needed to push and when I saw that it was set to turn on I went off happily to work congratulating myself on my (and the stove's) ingenuity! I arrived home at 6;15 expecting to see happy, full and satisfied individuals sitting around but it didn't quite work out that way. When I walked in the door I smelled the aroma of burning soy sauce. (I had doused the chicken with it before putting it in the oven). When I reached the kitchen and looked at the oven, it was still baking. Uh-Oh! When I opened the door I saw 6 shriveled up, almost black chicken breasts sitting in a dry baking dish. It was then several things occurred to me:
~Had no one taken a minute to peek in there to see "what's for dinner, MOM?" as they do incessantly when I'm actually in the kitchen trying to cook?
~Am I the only person in the family with a sense of smell?
~Hmmm...I don't remember telling the oven how long to cook, just when to start and at what temperature.
~I really need to use the instruction book next time.
At the very least, it's a good analogy.
So many people navigate life with the instruction book tucked away on a shelf where it only gathers dust. When life veers off in the wrong direction or something terrible happens they get upset but they never stop to think about why things might be going up in smoke. And if they are not thoughtful and realize that maybe they ought to read the manual, their lives will end up stinking and burnt. (I am a "fundie". I believe in a literal hell.) I just wish that it would occur to them that maybe they aren't doing some things correctly and that a close read of the instruction manual might help. Walking according to the Word of God really does make the navigation of life so much easier.
Quick Note: The black on the chicken turned out to be soy sauce and the chicken turned out to be "actually not to bad", according to the family, and quite edible even though it cooked an hour longer than I originally planned. Who knew chicken was so versatile?
I don't use that feature on my stove much, but I thought I remembered how it worked so i pushed all the buttons I thought I needed to push and when I saw that it was set to turn on I went off happily to work congratulating myself on my (and the stove's) ingenuity! I arrived home at 6;15 expecting to see happy, full and satisfied individuals sitting around but it didn't quite work out that way. When I walked in the door I smelled the aroma of burning soy sauce. (I had doused the chicken with it before putting it in the oven). When I reached the kitchen and looked at the oven, it was still baking. Uh-Oh! When I opened the door I saw 6 shriveled up, almost black chicken breasts sitting in a dry baking dish. It was then several things occurred to me:
~Had no one taken a minute to peek in there to see "what's for dinner, MOM?" as they do incessantly when I'm actually in the kitchen trying to cook?
~Am I the only person in the family with a sense of smell?
~Hmmm...I don't remember telling the oven how long to cook, just when to start and at what temperature.
~I really need to use the instruction book next time.
At the very least, it's a good analogy.
So many people navigate life with the instruction book tucked away on a shelf where it only gathers dust. When life veers off in the wrong direction or something terrible happens they get upset but they never stop to think about why things might be going up in smoke. And if they are not thoughtful and realize that maybe they ought to read the manual, their lives will end up stinking and burnt. (I am a "fundie". I believe in a literal hell.) I just wish that it would occur to them that maybe they aren't doing some things correctly and that a close read of the instruction manual might help. Walking according to the Word of God really does make the navigation of life so much easier.
Quick Note: The black on the chicken turned out to be soy sauce and the chicken turned out to be "actually not to bad", according to the family, and quite edible even though it cooked an hour longer than I originally planned. Who knew chicken was so versatile?
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