Today We Have Basil

It’s bitterly cold here today.

I love winter.

But this wind, well, it knocks the wind out of me. The snow is LITERALLY coming down horizontally.  And it’s like freezing cold in my office.

Needless to say, I am switching back and forth between listening to Sarah McLaughlin’s Christmas album, which seems very appropriate with said weather, and the song “Desert Rose” by Sting, which makes me feel very Moroccan and summer-y. Which is nothing like it is today.

What a confused girl I must seem.

I was perusing some of my writings from this past summer before I had this here little blog and came across one that I love in particular.

And it talks of summer.

And since Sting happens to be on at this moment, I am going to grace you with this little token of a summer past.

Warm Wishes. I love you all. Thanks for reading.

~

This summer two things happened:

1.       I started spending a lot of time with my friend Eliza and

2.       I started thinking a lot about basil. And then Eliza started thinking a lot about basil.

I think it started with a conversation about how we both had good feelings towards pesto.

I know, maybe most people don’t have conversations about pesto, but we definitely did. Numerous times. And our conversations elevated. “I just want to be awesome some day and have an apple cider press and make my own bread and grow my own basil!” While this isn’t a seriously strange thing for me to say, I found myself saying such trivialities quite often this summer. Then one day, I was attempting to describe my friend Loretta to my friend Eliza and I knew the only adequate explanation of Loretta could possibly be, “Let’s just say that Loretta grows her own basil. IF you know what I mean…”

Eliza knew. I knew: If you grow your own basil there is a good chance we think you are awesome.

(Loretta, if you are reading this, I think you are awesome.)

Last week our summer was finally satisfied. Ella, who grows her own basil both literally and figuratively, had a great plant of it all in full force in the yard. There was nothing left to do. Eliza and I had to make pesto.

Not to be put off by the obnoxious price of pine nuts (hint: they are not native to my Midwestern climate), we opted for walnuts (which are native…and thus they do not have an obnoxious price). And can I say that I am glad we did? I don’t know how pine nuts would have changed the flavor but I can’t imagine it to be too much. So go ahead, use the cheaper walnut. Whatever kind is native…J

All I will elaborate about the resulting pesto is that Eliza and I have more fond feelings towards pesto now than we did at the beginning of the summer.

What great goodness! Nice job, God. You again know what you are doing. Those potent leaves are brilliant. And delicious.

Then we did a "We grow our own basil" photoshoot.

For my weekend last week I went to my parent’s house. They were not home, but my brother and sister-in-law came home to keep me company. Since the green leaves were still in bloom and since I still like to cook for my family I thought I would make them such good pesto pasta. Not surprisingly, I found myself all nostalgic in being home. Visiting the haunts I used to frequent, seeing the people who used to be my only people, it all makes me go, “Darn. My life is different now, and I think I prefer this old one. Life was beautiful when I lived here; I wasn’t so terribly skeptical.”

If I am being honest I got into a little bit of a funk.

Being an adult changes the way I see the world, and I still don’t know if it is for the better. I will sadly admit that I am more skeptical, less soft, a little more bitter, more given to worry. Characteristics I hate.

The state of the world, seeing things I never needed to see, having hurts I wish I never had to have; all of these things caused me to go, “God! Will everything be ok?!?! What is going to happen to me in the next ten years? Will it all be so bad I won’t know what to do? Will I see famine and hunger and conquest and devastation?!? WILL IT ALL TURN OUT OK??!?”

There was no thunderous boomage.

 I was not bolstered by a sudden surge of confidence, but a removal of concern.

There was just a still small voice that came as I continued with dinner preparations and stood over that stove doing what I love to do for those I love most.

“Bethany, today we have basil,”Jesus said.

C.S. Lewis would say that the present is “the point at which time touches eternity.” Right now, in this Present, in this today, we can spend our time “meditating on our (their) eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.”

Giving thanks for today’s basil.

I sigh.

Maybe the world will go even more crazy. Or maybe it will continue the way it has for thousands of years.

But today.

Well.

Today I have basil.

Happy day to you peoples. The harvest is plentiful.

The foods of 5,000

Can you imagine if we never had the story of when Jesus fed the 5,000?

Think about it. What has that story meant to you over the years? Has that story made your faith something that it is? What would your relationship look like if you had no historical evidence that Jesus could take the nothing that you had, and multiply it to do something you could have never done with it?

I love this story (and it is in a couple different gospels. One says it was 5,000, another says 4,000 I think. Either way, that was not including women and children and it is WAY more than what 5 little loaves of bread and two little fishes should be able to feed). I love this story for a couple different reasons.

Go read it now, in Mark chapter 6.

I love how Jesus makes them admit how LITTLE they have. Look at verse 38. They respond “Five loaves and two fish.” Just previously they had asked if they should go spend 200 denarii to feed these people, which I guess is equivalent to like 200 days wages. So the disciples now know how much it could take to feed these people, they know what they have, and they know that beyond a shadow of a doubt they have come up short.

But Jesus takes the little that they have anyway.

I also don’t think that he took it in a pitying way, either. Not a “Oh, well nice try anyway, you little pitiful, miserable human who can’t do anything.” No, I don’t think so.

Jesus took the overflow that they didn’t have, and thanked God for it.

THEN, and this is something I have never before noticed, after giving thanks, he set those same five loaves and two fishes down on some type of “buffet” and let the people come.

They came. All 5,000+ came, and they were satisfied (vs 42). But it was the SAME five loaves and 2 fish. There was not all of the sudden some huge spread laid before the masses with coolers and hot boxes brimming with more behind the table.

Nope.

Still just five loaves and 2 fishes.

And then you know what happens? The absolute craziest thing!

There were leftovers .

Just bits and pieces here and there. 12 baskets full of bits and pieces.

Which, if I am doing my math correctly, is more than what they started with. Did anyone else notice that? The leftovers were more than the beginning.

Isn’t that the most beautiful thing?! All of our nothingness. Our poor, miserable lack of what we need, or lack of what the situation needs, when we give it to Jesus he gives thanks for the lack, and then does more with it than the sum of all the parts.

What if Jesus had never done that? I am so thankful he did. It builds my faith to know that he cherishes the little that I can give, and that he can make something out of all that nothing.

~~~

And speaking of feeding 5,000 people, I have never done that.

BUT I did feed dessert to 450 people at a fundraiser two nights ago (which might I add raised something like $175,000 to stop babies from being aborted….yay God!!).

(It's not real champagne, mind you)

And then the next morning I came home and was like, “I never want to see chocolate mousse again and I have to have something savory NOW.”

The actress Debi Mazar and her husband, an Italian man from Tuscany---Gabrielle--who pretty much worships the ground she walks on, have a cooking show and on it they shared a recipe for something called Pepperonata. Pepperonata is pretty much pepper and potatoes cooked to almost-smithereens in tomato sauce, and then slathered on garlic bread, which has resulted on numerous occasions with me leaning my head back, closing my eyes, and proclaiming that I may never leave the dinner table.

Well yesterday morning I didn’t make pepperonata. I didn’t have any peppers.

But I did take some potatoes and cook them almost to smithereens in tomato sauce, along with onions, ham, and an egg on top which just kind of steams if you put a lid on it.

Let’s just use the word “Fabulosity.”

Did I also mention earlier that I topped it with fresh cilantro (because fresh basil does not exists in this climate this time of year) and two little rounds of buttered rosemary toast on the side made by a wonderful friend?

Consider it mentioned now.

Go. Go make yourself some savory eggs and thank Jesus in Heaven for such things as Pepperonata knock-offs for breakfast.

On dirty dishes. And photoshoots.

Do you know what, pretty much, my worst fear is?

That I will someday not have any dishes to wash.

I know, I know. I am just full of all these weird things nobody else feels. I don’t like to sleep, I don’t really like most desserts, I would prefer to live without dogs, I love cold winters, and now this: I never want the dishes to stop.

I mean look at that sudsy sink! What’s not to love!

“Bubbies,” as my two year old niece calls them, are something short of miraculous.

Most of our dishes tell stories, too.

Like this coffee cup from the Starbucks.

The Starbucks Support Center, that is. A.k.a Headquarters.

And this cup can only be procured there at Headquarters.

And I know somebody who works there, so I got to be there.
What a tremendous day.

Or this cup. From Hot Coffee, Mississippi.

While I have never been to Mississippi, it was given to my family by a dear friend of ours who lived there. An eccentric old man when we knew him. A chain smoker for some 65 odd years, he had drank nothing but Venezuelan espresso for the last 30 years, an avid collector of Cadillacs, he was very generous and died of something like a cold when he was well up into his 80’s and had given his life to the Lord only some 10 months prior to that. We met him through one of my brothers. He was something of a “grandfather” figure to my brother’s friend (as well as Brett Favre, we found out), and he invited my brother to Mississippi for a crawfish boil one weekend.

And that was it. From then on out he was Mr. Curtis to us.

So I love the stories our dishes tell.

Which is part one of a two part reason for why I would be sad if I never had any more dishes to do.

Part One: If I never had any more dishes to do, then I might forget the stories that they tell.

Part Two: If I never had any more dishes to do, then that would mean we wouldn’t have any food.

Which is the “worst fear” part. Famine sounds awful.

And I hate that a lot of people in the world live in it.

Therefore, from today, I will try to never complain again about dirty dishes because not only do some dirty dishes tell stories of God’s faithfulness, but they always tell a story of God’s provision.

~~~

My best friend is moving to Arizona next week.

I don’t live anywhere near Arizona.

Naturally, we had to see each other one more time before she turned her life upside down.

This move is such an answer to her prayers. *Finally.

I don’t know what else there is to do to commemorate these changing lives than a photoshoot, and since I couldn’t think of anything else, we did a photoshoot. Which is somehow the first I have done with her, which doesn’t make any sense because I seem to do them with everyone.

My theological reason for this is because I believe that adult women need to play dress-up more.

It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously, and for once it reminds us what is was like to not feel the weight of the world, and then to not worry about that weight, and simply to trust that “my Father will take care of it.”

So here is to us letting Him take care of it.

A breather.

This morning's post was weighty. Heavy. Potentially burdensome.

I don't want any of you to feel defeated. I want all of us to look to Jesus. To know with everything that we are that, again, HE is the only answer. For life. For salvation. For conquering our weaknesses.

I have loved this song for a long time.
And it just came on.
How perfectly providential.
Let this be a balm to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcJ-7VRLFRs

To Guard Against Temptation {A Journal Entry}

To Guard against Temptation{A journal entry}:

James 1:14 But each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.

*Temptation comes in the dragged away places.

Those areas of my life that aren’t walking hand in hand, or just right next to, Jesus.

This verse also makes me notice that what is tempting to me is not actually what is tempting me. My own evil desire is what is dragging me there. Usually what we are tempted by is an inanimate object, or else it is an animate entity we view as an object. Either way, both typically hold no power in themselves. Temptations are not usually forced upon us, for if we were forced into it, it wouldn’t be a temptation. Oh sure, sometimes we feel like we have no choice in the matter, but if that wasn’t something we struggled with (for certainly there are people in the world who are NOT tempted by your that thing you desire the most), then there wouldn’t be any issue; temptation does not force us. Rather, the evil desire in us is PULLING us towards that thing, not because we need it or sometimes even want it, but because of how we FEEL upon partaking of that.

Think about it:

For those who are tempted by alcohol, it’s not the liquid substance that tempts you, it’s how you feel when you drink. You enjoy feeling fun, or likeable, invincible, king of the world, or you like that the pain has been taken away (even if only for the duration of time that the alcohol is in your veins). Really, the person who is tempted by that, and many other things too, is fighting whatever is death to them. If you like the feelings you get while drinking, then the opposite is what you fear, it’s what you HATE feeling; that is your “death.” To be UNlikeable, or UNfun, or stoppable, or to have no power of your own, or to continue to feel the pain---that is your worst nightmare.

For those who are tempted by sex or porn, that object is not what draws you in, you draw it to you because of how you FEEL while participating. Do you feel powerful? Beautiful? Macho? Desirable? Those are all false-senses. You didn’t become any more powerful, beautiful, macho, or desirable because of that act. That didn’t make you better at all. It just made you THINK you were. You actually didn’t gain any of those qualities.

To those who desire money, they don’t actually want green sheets of paper, because if those green sheets of paper were not used as currency, then they would have no need for rooms and lock-boxes full of it.

Do you like that you are capable of acquiring anything with that money? Will perils of war and famine and hunger not come knocking at your door because you can buy your way out of it; you can build a bomb shelter or a buy a castle in Switzerland? Can you get away with anything because somewhere along the line someone who stands in between you and your freedom can get bought out of the way for the small price of some amount that is inconsequential to you? Aren’t you really desiring the power that money wields? The protection against perils?

News flash: Someday, no matter how many wars you can buy your way out of suffering through—or whatever it is you are buying your way out of, you are still going to die.

Are you tempted by body image issues (eating disorders {i.e. anorexia, bulimia, gluttony---they are all just different means to the same end}, over-working out, etc)? No, you’re not. Your evil desire wants whatever you feel that will accomplish. How do I know?

Been there, done that.

In this situation you wrongly believe that you will either be more lovable, desirable, protected, if you participate in that lifestyle. For those who fall into the LACK of food category, we usually deal with control issues and the fear that if we are not in control then we will not be secure. Or we fear that no one will ever love us and therefore our whole life will be a life of emptiness, ravaging, and that we will never be safe.

For the over-eaters, do you use food as a wall? As a means of protection? So that no one will ever get close again? So that no one will ever get close enough to HURT you again? And those who try to get close must not be out to hurt you and must be good people because they aren’t in it for looks or for themselves?

I hope this wasn’t some rambling exposé. What I think the truth of this verse is that what we are tempted by, or what areas are “dragged away,” are areas that are not walking next to Jesus. They are false-saviors. Why else would the commandments say, both in the Old and New Testaments, all be summed up in: you shall love the Lord your God with everything, and He shall be your ONLY God?

Our own evil desires drag us away. Those weaknesses we haven’t let Jesus into. We have to watch ourselves carefully---we are tempted the most by our greatest weakness (for where Jesus is not, the devil most certainly is).

Praise be, then, that for the believer temptations can be conquered!! Jesus said, “’My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”(II Cor. 12:9-10)

We can have strength in our weaknesses, in our “dragged away” places, when we let Jesus bring those areas back to walk just right next to him.

To fall never again

Like I said yesterday, my family is all together on vacation this week.
We are at one of those obnoxiously large indoor waterparks (because some of us live in the midwest and it's the last day of January---almost all things are done indoors), and it takes probably ten minutes to walk from our room to the wave pool (which is a fabulous workout if you have a 5 year old on your back and are trying to dodge inner tubes so the 5 year old doesn't get squashed...fyi).

At this water park there are all types of things. Lazy rivers, the huge buckets that dump a thousand gallons of water on unsuspecting passerbys, loads of bathing suits (thank you, Lord. The alternative would be awkward..), even more loads of childrens who are sometimes in bathing suits, perpetually wet floors, even soggier towels, and water slides.

Oh, the water slide.

I have had a pretty good relationship to them in the course of my life. When I would spend summers in Chicago with my grandmother, every day my cousins and I would go to the pool (we all thought grandma wanted to be generous, but looking back now I realize she just wanted us out of the house. My grandmother has 37 grandkids, by the way), and there was a water slide. Great times. Great times. Diving boards? Now that's another story. I still have to manually plug my nose when I go under water. Can't do that too easily while trying to dive.
Anyway, the water slide. I prefer the ones where you can't see anything. The anticipation is what kills you, and if the water slide itself is going to kill me I would prefer to not see that coming.

But a few summers ago, all of that changed.
My whole life changed.
I always thought I was afraid of heights.
But then I did this activity (watch the YouTube video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K0qNEpzqQ8&feature=related

Besides the fact that this girl is blond, married, and most likely Canadian (there was a slight tone of her voice...), the situation is somewhat the same.
Actually, that's not true at all, the place is the same.
I was in Switzerland (which you all really should see sometime in your life) and my friends had the great idea of doing something crazy.
Never one to show that I am terrified of heights I was just like, "Oh Yeah!! Perfect!" and then I got two Canadian boys to do it with us.
And in the process of faking my excitement I found myself climbing to the top of this mountain thinking that at least my brothers will think I am awesome.

I was second to go in our group of nine. The waiver was signed. The harness was on. I was walking on to the platform.
What I didn't know before stepping onto the platform was that it was actually just a wire grate, a.k.a. I could see through to what was below me.
Oh.My.Goodness.
What in the world have I done?
I was planning on just running and doing this great dive of faith off the board and it was going to be something magical and heroic and inspire all the 7 people behind me.
All was going much in that direction when, as I was running to the edge, I realized, "Holy Smokes...what am I doing!?!?" and promptly stopped and pulled myself back. Terrified.
Thinking there has to be a better way to do this and knowing that walking back down the mountain is not an option they offer, I thought, "Well why don't I just STEP off with one leg and let gravity do it's business?"
The issue with that plan, I found out, is that gravity DOES do it's business.
In the split second before my entire body started plummeting 300 feet down the side of a cliff my natural muscles just decided to arch my back.

So here is where we are: I have put one foot over the edge and bent the other leg. Gravity kicks in. There are two ropes attached to me.  One hooked onto either side of the canyon in front of me. There is a raging river with huge boulders some 300 feet below.
My back arches.

And my back hits the platform.

Gravity is still doing it's business.

And now I have been pushed, by said platform, into the forward falling position. I am now falling horizontally, facing the river below, knowing that I smoked my back, not knowing if I can still move, not screaming at all, eyes bulging out of my head, and thinking, "Great, I just paid $150 to paralyze myself."

When the rope finally caught and I started flying through the air, that's when I let out an "I'M ALIVE!!!" yell.
I could hear my friends at the top then also yelling "SHE'S ALIVE!!!!"
See, they thought I had hit my head because they just heard the THUMP.
And then I didn't scream on my way down.
So when they realized I wasn't suffering from unconsciousness, they were happy.
The girl who came down after me got to me with tears still in her eyes. "WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!!!!" she said.
Oh great.
That's comforting.

And then I was the talk of the town that night. "Where is the girl who smoked her back on the platform!??!" everyone wanted to know. Then everyone wanted to see my back.
Apparently, in the 15 year history of canyon jumping, I am the ONLY person who has ever done that.

Oh yeah. That's me.


So my family is at a water park this week.
And before my life was changed by that almost accident, I always thought that I was afraid of heights, but then I realized, No NO, I am not afraid of heights, I am afraid of falling.

And, as I learned that fateful day, doing something to spite your fears doens't cure it. It makes you more convinced of it.

Did I mention that there are water slides here?

Yeah, those usually involve a fall of some kind.
I think I have gone on 4 while here.
One brought back all kinds of dark memories.
And the other ones made me slightly hyperventilate while in line.
But I went.
Just to spite my fears.

Which are all pretty solidly still in place, mind you.

So what, I have figured out, is my adrenaline rush of choice?
Speed.
With a lack of feet or tires leaving the ground.
Which would exclude waterslides.
I would be fine if I never fell again.
And will continue to feel this way until the next rush of insanity throws me off another canyon or something heinous like that.


Here is me at the bottom.
After I survived.
I look so happy.
That's a cover-up.

TSL. Chap One.

Chapter 1. STL

                This is late. Because on Thursday I said it was going to maybe come the next day. Which would have been Friday.

But that was like 3 days ago.

So maybe this is just what MAYBE looks like.

                Don’t be discouraged, though. It’s not just the blog that is late. My life was a little late this weekend; irritating how that happens. My whole family is on vacation together and at 9:30 the night before we left I thought, “Oh my gosh! I still have a beach cover-up to sew,” (anyone remember the Swag and Buckle?!) and, “I doubt that beach bag is going to see completion either. Blast.”

                The next morning when we were getting ready to leave, my sister in law, who was staying at my house, was buttoning up her coat and I said, “Oh, are you all ready?” and she replies, “Yes!” to which I then said, “That’s great, but I haven’t packed a suitcase yet…”

                I would like to think (most surely this is ignorantly thought) that I am not a late person, and if I am, I blame it on college. I was terribly prompt before college, but now, well, there are just so many things to do.

Oh, and I discovered the snooze button in college.

What a terrible waste of time. Nothing like a snooze to make you late.

Anyway. That has nothing to do with the Screwtape Letters, I just wanted to apologize.

Moving on.

Have you read it yet? At least Chapter 1?

In this chapter the “patient” is not a Christian yet, but seems to be on the edge.

If you are a Christian now, then you know what I mean by on the edge. It’s that time period of life where all of the nagging is, right before you give up the ghost and say, “Ok Lord, I can’t do this. Life is not going well without you.”

That is where we find the patient and how interesting to see how they are attacking a non-Christian. The products of these attacks are so visibly obvious in our society.

                The opening conversation about materialism, and wanting to keep the patient in that lifestyle, is really brilliant. He says that this young demon is lucky his patient isn’t living 200 years earlier. “At that time humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain reasoning.”

                I find that “prepared to alter their way of life,” and “the result of chain reasoning,” to be exceptionally telling. Right now I would say the climate of society is not acceptable to either of those.

                So congratulations, fiend. You have done your job.

                Right now it doesn’t matter whether something is proved or not, because even if it is proved that doesn’t mean someone will change their life. I think people in general are much more likely to carry on in their manner of living, whether it is conducive to and agreeable with reality or not. A very “in denial” society surrounds us now.

                There was a news show on TV the other night and they were going around at a museum in D.C. asking people to give a letter grade of approval on how they thought the president was performing. What they said is beside the point, but I thought it was so interesting that any person in high school who they asked gave him an “A” because “he is trying hard.” Whatever side of the political stance you are on is irrelevant to this, but it should terrify you that the young generation would somehow think you can do that. Approved because he was trying? An “A” for effort is not how the world works; Nazis put forth a lot of effort. Terrorists put forth a lot of effort. Coming to that conclusion those students got is absolutely NOT a result of chain reasoning, whether it was about politics or whatever, the telling of the cultural story is the same. They did not reason to get that answer.

                The book takes it a step further in saying, “Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together in his head.” I had a conversation with an acquaintance once about how she believes that all things evolved, but believes that every human was created special and with a purpose.

What?

No.

No, that’s not how that works. I wanted to say, “You realize that both of those can’t be true, right?”

For someone to hold that belief they either:

 A. don’t know what either of those theories stand for and it just sounds good to them, or

 B. They do know and are just choosing to believe the names and not the platform behind those names.

This is clearly the means: “Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true!!”

Point taken.

The reason they do this comes in the next paragraph. “The trouble about argument is it moves the whole struggle on to the Enemy’s ground…” (the enemy of course referring to Christ in this book) “…By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason.” In keeping people away from thinking, from chain reasoning to take a line from the book, you can keep them away from all kinds of truths.

Go ahead and fight the enemy: think about it.

This is quoteworthy: “Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy’s!) you don’t realize how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary.” He goes on to say that he could remember a patient of his who was having a thought about going towards God, and rather than trying to reason him out of it, he just got him thinking about his need for a sandwich.

And that was all, folks. The man left the art museum where he was thinking, walked out on the street and saw the bus and the newsboy, all such REAL things, and that thought was thereafter lost on the patient.

“You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on the ordinariness of things. Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defense against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can’t touch and see.”

We are so confined by things that we can see.  Completely controlled by it. Sometimes much more completely moved by the thought of a sandwich than by some earth shattering truth. But the best news we get about that was stated in the last paragraph: Jesus knows what it’s like to be human. He knows how confined we are to appetites and exhaustion and the extent of the failings of our physical bodies and how pressed we are by the concept of time.

 And, I don’t know if he blames us for being human.

Glory Be.

I mean, he made us as humans.

That, of course, is not meant as an excuse to indulge the sinful nature and live outlandishly because, “we are human,” I think it just means that he knows what it’s like to need to go to bed at night. And he knows how sometimes, when your stomach is gnawing, all you really can think about is a sandwich.

Thank you, Jesus, for understanding the humanity of us. Now just don’t allow us to keep thinking like the rest of humanity. Don’t let us be that duped.