The Pete, repeat, and defeat

Where to begin? Today hasn't been a bad day, but I remember waking up this morning thinking things just weren't going in my favor. When the shower wasn't hot and the shower head wouldn't stand up, it took me back to the day I blogged months ago about similar Sunday morning issues somehow turning into a REALLY happy day. I was excited about the possibility of little irritants turning into big blessings. I guess at the end of the day, it's really all in how you deal with the hand you're dealt (an appropriate phrase for a gambling culture).

I had bought Cinnabon mini cinnamon rolls at the Manila airport for my roomies, and this morning I popped them in the toaster oven--one for each of us. The Cinnabon slogan is 'life needs frosting,' so I decided that that should be my motto for the day, and thus the day would be pretty sweet, right?

Church was amazing. Steve L. led the service. This was the first time I'd heard him speak, and he made a lot of great points. The sermon was on Ephesians 1:15-2:10.
Interesting points:
1. We ALL once lived among the sons of disobedience (it sounds like some rough gang from Chicago...we were all there). This makes it seem like we should be a little more understanding and forgiving when people 'do us wrong' or are 'heathens'...Agree?
2. Paul prays for those that have believed. A lot of time we pray that those who don't know Christ as their personal Savior would come to accept them as their Savior, but Steve pointed out Paul is praying for the believers here. Yes, the non-believers should be prayed for. Here, though, Paul is implying that believers still need their eyes opened. "Christ is not something we just 'get' like a piece of knowledge. [He is a living King, and just like we spend time getting to know each other, we should spend time discovering Him.] We believers have it (salvation), but we haven't 'got it' yet; we are still getting it [getting as in understanding]. The section from 1:15-2:10 actually starts out pretty dark. We began at death (or deserving it), and without Christ's salvation that's where we still are/would be. In order to understand the hope to which we are called, we must understand the hopelessness at which we began...death (2:1).
3. The devil said to Eve in Genesis 'surely you will not die; you become more like God.' The flip side of that same lie that satan tells us today is 'surely you are not dead, you are like God.' He tries to convince us that we are living fully apart from Christ. Such is not the case.
4. We are by nature an object of wrath. Steve used the example of a rat as an object of our wrath. They are nasty, filthy, they eat our food and make our things dirty, etc...but just like us, all that the rat does is natural. It's our nature to sin and be filthy. That's why Christ's guidance is so essential. Every headline (example murder, crime, etc.) has its source in the human heart. G.K. Chesterton once answered the question 'what's wrong with the world?' with the response, "I am." It's our dislike for admitting we are flawed that keeps us from progress. As a teacher, I can tell you it is far more difficult to teach students that think they have nothing to learn. We always have room for improvement, even as the 'righteous.' After comparing us to rats, making obvious that we deserve God's wrath, verse 4 sweeps in with that magic word: BUT. But what? But God is rich in mercy. And voila, there we have it. God is pleased to rescue us from our rat-ness, if we let Him.
5. "The church has no room for the advice of the world to 'fake it until you make it.' For so long as you fake it, you will not make it [to Heaven]."..."God is able to make a dead man's bones dance again."

This afternoon was spent peeling and cutting potatoes, onions and jalapenos for my spicy potato contribution to Mexican night at Kenisha and Nancy's tonight. I didn't mind that it took so long, though I began to think about how most women used to stay at home before feminism...and they must have spent the whole day busy making meals. I enjoy cooking, but one thing that makes me upset very quickly is when a dish comes out wrong. It feels like a failure--a lot of times it's not because I don't know how to cook but because I got distracted or the equipment I'm working with is shotty or I ran out of time. Who knows. Today, I had one of those frustrating moments. We have a skillet, but no lid, and I was trying to fry with a limited temperature setting device. Somehow stuff burnt onto the pan and the potatoes never actually cooked properly. The end of the story was coughing from a little smoke in my lungs, a mediocre batch of potatoes, a stinky apartment, and all of those hours of work seemingly wasted. I became pretty upset, and I guess around 6pm I felt like the shower woes of this morning were just predictors of the other irritants to come today. Where was the frosting on my life that Cinnabon had directed me with this morning? I suppose I felt like a rat in a sewer. Okay, it wasn't that bad.
I ended up, as I tend to do when I get irritated, evaluating the logic behind the irritant. The outcome: ruining my disposition. The reason: potatoes that cost me 5MOP ($.60) being wasted...it doesn't really seem worth it. I'll admit, I was irritated for a while with all the 'if only I had...,' but eventually I came around to see that it wasn't all so bad after all.

I had a chance to listen to Southeast Christian's sermon on Making Much of Little, and decided that even with the petty irritants of my day, I am still EXTREMELY blessed. So today I had moments where I showed my rat-tendencies. I'm so glad for that 'BUT' of mercy.

The holidays are over and I'm back to work tomorrow. Over and out.