December 15, 2009
The Best
When it came to eating a T-bone steak my dad’s motto was always, ‘If you eat the best first, then you’ll always be eating the best’. My dad was a worldly man with a selfish attitude. However I think his philosophy can work when we’re giving to the Lord. If we start by giving the Lord the very best we have, anything more will still be the best we have to give.
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Gail;
-----When I first thought about your Dad’s motto, it didn’t make sense to me. I habitually approach a steak on my plate with initial analysis. I look it over to identify where it is lean, where it is fat, and where it’s more well done, or less. According to how I am feeling at a particular mealtime, maybe favoring lean more than fatty, or rare more than well done, I identify a best portion, and the less than best areas. If I ate the best first, I would obviously have the less than best with which to finish. Then I realized your Dad was not referring to the steak on his own plate, he was referring to all the steaks on the serving platter. Yes, Gail, that sounds selfish.
-----We often ate fried chicken when I was growing up. Somewhere I got the habit of taking the wings and backs first, and waiting to see if thighs, legs, or breasts were available for seconds. That was certainly an opposite philosophy of your Dad’s. He probably wouldn’t have liked me. In fact, most people would think I was being rather milk-toasty. But I grew up healthy all the same. I haven’t needed a dentist for thirty-six years; I rarely get the flu worse than a feverishness, and my colds are generally three or four day sneezey, sniffly spells. I more attribute my good health to God’s smiling upon me than I do to anything else. And I know eating chicken wings and backs did not really contribute to it, but neither did it diminish it.
-----Yet, what I did get from eating chicken backs and wings was an understanding that life‘s issue was not about my plateful being the best. My best enjoyment of it was. And that was entirely up to my own assessment. If certain flavors within it could not make it better than what I left upon the serving platter, then certain attitudes about the other people around the table could. After the chicken was consumed, those people always remained. The smiles upon their faces lasted all day, whereas the chicken flavor in my mouth faded before I was back outside playing. I best liked the more permanent.
-----But all this isn’t to say I was a good kid. I wasn’t. I was a stinking brat. And I still am. My mind is ever conscious of Isaiah 64:6, “...all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment, we all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” I have settled for chicken wings and backs all my life, so I have not the best for my Lord. Nor can I consider anything I give Him to be the best of what I do have, because I am always too aware that my efforts and gifts can be of the better. Even if I tried my hardest I would know I could yet have tried better. So I cry out with Paul, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Rom 7:15) I do not concern myself with giving Him the best anymore, because I am not the most capable of measuring things. I gave Him the measuring device long ago. My efforts now are to give Him what I feel to be real and sincere, knowing I even fall short in that. So, I am left being happy with just giving what I am able to give Him, knowing He will graciously enjoy it the best He can and will make the best of it.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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