Defeated

Some of you who have been reading my blog for some time now may recall my ill-fated attempt at making rice last week ("So yeah...", May 22, 2003). Unshaken by this disaster...actually, I was rather shaken--I love rice and would have made it several times this week if not for the prior disaster, but that's beside the point. Unshaken by this disaster, I today attempted again to make rice. Knowing I was not aware exactly how long I needed to run the microwave, I stopped it at 5 minute intervals to check its progress. Finally, after 13 minutes (the recipe called for 25), all of the chicken soup had dissolved and the rice was ready...except that it was far too wet. By mistake, I had only put a half cup of rice into the bowl when I was supposed to put in one cup. I know had an extremely wet substance that tasted like rice with way too much chicken soup saturating it. I found myself, once again, defeated.

It can be easy to see our lives just like my attempts at rice-making, as utterly futile. We sin and sin and sin some more, and we never seem to get anywhere. Either the rice ends up burned and red, or it ends up oversaturated. Our lives can often be the same way--we jump out of one sin and into another. It's aggrivating! But (unlike my situation with rice making), we are not defeated! We are bought with Christ's blood and are here to continue to fight the good fight, even when it seems that we are struck down.

That being said, eventually I will manage to correctly make a bowl of rice. Until then, in that department I remain full of defeat.

Luke