Since I’m not the best cook on the planet, I’ll go ahead and admit that I would love to have an “easy button” around dinner-fixing time. I’m already a fan of all things frozen. If it can go from freezer to microwave to table, I’m sold.
One night I put together an all-fruit dinner from everything beautifully frozen. Strawberry smoothies, a raspberry and blueberry fruit salad and Salisbury steak. Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and Salisbury. Perfect. An all-berry dinner!
And just because the “All Around the Mulberry Bush” song is now stuck in my head, that doesn’t mean I would ever consider frozen weasel. No matter how much it tastes like chicken. Nope, not even with gravy.
I will say that once we get into all those frozen animal, vegetable or mineral meat-like products, Salisbury and otherwise, we’re into an area where I do have some considerable experience. I’ll just be honest and tell you that sometimes it’s a good experience. And sometimes it’s not. I had TV-dinner chicken the other day that smelled really weird. None for me, thanks. It looked and smelled like it had been mimeographed.
At least I know it couldn’t have been spoiled. I think most of the almost meat-like products that I bought at the store this week won’t go bad until somewhere around the year 2250. Which, ironically, is about how much some of them cost.
Looking for convenience? It’s not so bad to go frozen. But if you’re looking for what’s good for you spiritually, it’s best to go fire, not frost. Staying hot, really on fire for Christ, may not always be the most convenient, but it’s always the best way to live. We weren’t meant to waste time running around in circles. We were never called to a mimeograph kind of life either. We’re not merely to copy life. We’re called to live it! To stay in it! To keep going!
I like reading the paraphrase in The Message of Paul’s testimony in 1 Cor. 9:26-27: “I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.” Sloppy living? None of that for me either, thank you! I want to be one who runs—one who perseveres to the glory of God!
There’s no easy button. Still, we should never try to weasel out of His call to persevere. Perseverance results in blessing. Paul said in Rom. 2:7, “To those who by patient persistence in well-doing, springing from piety, seek unseen but sure glory and honor and the eternal blessedness of immortality, He will give eternal life.”
Peter was all about reminders to persevere. He said in 2 Pet. 1:12-13, “Therefore I will always remind you about these things, even though you know them and are established in the truth you have. I consider it right, as long as I am in this bodily tent, to wake you up with a reminder.”
I’m dittoing Peter’s wake-up reminder.
And that, incidentally, has nothing whatever to do with mimeographing.