November 2: Of Tomato Sauce, Adobo and Obedience

Ezekiel 3:16-6:14

Hebrews 4:1-16

Psalm 104:24-35

Proverbs 26:27

Two Saturdays in a row, I've inflicted my cooking on the unsuspecting and the helpless - my daughter and her four housemates last week, my wife and two sons today.  I cooked the same recipes - a fresh crushed tomato pasta sauce, and a variation on an Filipino staple - chicken adobo, but with coconut milk and crushed red peppers added to the soy sauce, coconut vinegar, garlic and black pepper.  I found the recipes in a publication, written by someone whose reputation as a chef was pretty credible.  So I got to know the chef, and then I followed her instructions.  I admit there were a couple of times I hesitated - "coconut milk?  Really?" - but from the response of five hungry fresh graduates (one of them an occasional vegetarian) in the end I was happy I followed chef's instructions to the letter.  I didn't realize it would turn out so good.

The thing is, we can be pretty good at following instructions to the letter.  Recipes are just one example.  I mean, have you ever tried assembling Ikea furniture or a massive Lego toy without diligently following the manual step by step?  We do so willingly, however difficult, tedious, even infuriating obedience might be, because we trust the source and believe something good will come of it in the end.  Why then, I wonder, is it so difficult to follow God's instructions to the letter?  And what can we learn from Ezekiel in today's reading?  

Let's think for a second about how we might have reacted had we heard God give us the instructions he gave Ezekiel.  "Uh, God, did you say 390 days one one side?  And then another 40 days on the other?"  Or "wait, you want me to cook my bread with WHAT?!"  If you are anything like me, you would have at the very least asked "why?"  And you might have demanded to understand why, perhaps even agree, before you obeyed.

I ask myself why it is so easy to obey a cook I've never met and struggle to obey God?  Why was Ezekiel able to obey such difficult instructions when I probably wouldn't have?  I think there are two answers.  The first is that the stakes with God are so much higher.  Because He wants to give us so much more than a good meal, what He asks of us is so much greater.  The second is that Ezekiel knew God - so intimately, in fact, that he conversed with Him; he spoke to God, and he heard God's answers.  

So Father, after eating the chicken and reading about Ezekiel, I pray that You allow me to get to know You, so much that when we converse, I can hear You speak to me.  And when You tell me to do something, remind me that what You want for me is so much better than anything I might cook for myself, and give me the desire to obey You, unquestioningly and to the letter.