That was nasty!

Let's get something out the way upfront...I'm not a good cook. I think I could be a good cook but I am just too lazy to do it enough to get better. There are times when I have to cook (meaning my wife is out of town, money is low, restaurants are closed because of national holiday etc) and it takes me all day to have food ready because I follow my recipe book to the letter (how much is a dash of salt by the way).

Anyway there is one thing I make that my kids and wife acknowledge that I am not only good at but great at. They say I make it even better than my dear wife. It's tuna fish (now I know for some of you reading this it does not count as cooking but hey it's the best I can do). I make a mean tuna melt etc.

Well this morning while getting ready to "cook up" some tuna fish I made a huge blunder. I got out the can, cracked it open and poured it out into a bowl. Then I opened the refrigerator for the main ingredient beside the tuna fish - mayonnaise. Why didn't anyone tell me we were out of mayo?

What do you do with tuna fish in a bowl and no mayo? If you are like me you improvise. I got out some butter (or better yet "I Can't Believe it's not butter") and added it to the tuna. Then I added some salt and pepper and seasoned it up.

It looked different but not that much. Then I tasted it....ewwww. That was nasty!

I can't eat that stuff...maybe I'll give it to the kids when they are really hungry (especially my son - he'll eat anything). But it taught me a lesson. Sometimes in life we try to replace the right thing with a substitute that seems just as good. Maybe you haven't tried it so let me talk about myself.

I realized a couple weeks ago I was replacing spending time praying earnestly and reading my Bible with doing work for God and helping others. Don't get me wrong those things are important. But they are not substitutes for spending time with God. I picture God looking at our lives when we replace the things He asked us to with substitutes, bad (worldly entertainment, illicit sex, drugs etc) or good (friends, church work, school work) as looking at us and saying "That was nasty!"

In fact He says so in the Bible - "So because you are neither cold nor hot - I am about to spit you out of my mouth." Rev 3:16. Powerful stuff.

I don't want God to say that about me. I'm going to get the right ingredients in my life....and my tuna fish as well!