Dinner....Barely

Dinner almost didn't happen tonight. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the least desire to cook, I registered at -7.6 around 3:47 this afternoon. The regrettable lack of processed food in our house is such a good/bad thing. Today, it was a beatdown. I was moments away from handing my children a cucumber and a bag of rice and suggesting they figure something out. I was hallucinating about the good old days when we could casually swing by Chick Fil A for a little carefree TBHQ mixed with our MSG and gluten.

Food is such a weird topic.
If you think about it, food was centrally involved in the first human sin. Complaints about food resulted in the Israelites vomiting meat out their noses, getting struck down with a plague, and that whole freakishly macabre snake situation. (I read that story and come apart every time. My scalp just got all creepy-crawly thinking about it again.) Really, the consequences we dish out around here for complaining about dinner seem pretty tame. Perhaps a viper or two in reserve would help on nights when what I've cooked is less than popular.

The book of Numbers uses the words whined/grumbled/complained more than any account of grown-ups ever should. And, almost all of the less-than-mature attitudes are about food. Seriously, I think Numbers actually beats the whining/grumbling/complaining that comes from the youth group girls when they first get their rooming assignments for a retreat. Sometime I should sell tickets for the rooming assignment release event just so you could see Brian disappear in a mob of girls, consumed by their shrill panic.

Anyway....
Soon after all their adolescent behavior (give or take 40 years), the Israelites got lots of food in their land of milk and honey and they turned away from God. God had already warned them that they would get fat on food and naturally careen straight into idolatry. (Does our Creator know us or what?)

Food.
We complain about boring food.
We complain about not enough food.
We complain about having to cook.
We over eat, under eat, and eat toxic food on purpose.
We ignore the plight of the truly hungry.
We think about it, crave it, lust after it.
Food.

I cooked dinner and as I cooked, I didn't feel quite so alone in my selfish aversion to cooking today. After all, history proves out that I'm not the first one to develop an sinful attitude related to food.

Then I made a choice. I chose to serve by cooking. I chose to be grateful for the precious ones I got to feed. And for tonight, I stopped grumbling about cooking and we really enjoyed dinner. I do need to say, I'm pretty excited for food to be put back in its place when God gives us our new bodies and the new earth.