I had well intended plans to make a healthy version of a chicken enchilada casserole for dinner. The sauce was loaded with pureed vegetables that I was very excited to sneak in to the recipe in order to get more nutrients in to my boys. The new-to-me recipe wasn’t complicated, but it did have multiple steps to follow. No problem, I thought. I’m a good cook. This is no big deal at all.
The day I chose to attack this recipe the baby was teething and wanted to be held all day. Because Cohen needed attention, I had to keep stopping the process and come back to it. At some point I simply strapped Cohen to me in a baby carrier and pressed on!
Well, somewhere lost between his tears and my own because I was not successful soothing him, I added the final ingredient–chipotle peppers in adobe sauce– to my Vitamix to puree into the sauce.
As I started layering the casserole together I inadvertently tasted the sauce off of my finger. My mouth was on FIRE. The sauce was so hot! I had to spit it out! I thought, “What in the world? The reviews said the recipes said that children loved this! How is that possible?”
I started googling ways to cool down a sauce that was too spicy. I tried EVERYTHING I could find online. NOTHING I tried got it to the point where it would be acceptable for my boys. I resigned myself to the fact that my painstaking work and all of those nutritious vegetables were wasted. We’d be having plain ol’ cheese quesadillas for dinner.
Feeling defeated and exhausted, I plopped down to review the recipe. Then I saw it. What I read to be “chipotles in adobe sauce,” was actually “A chipotle in adobe sauce.” One chipotle. Yes, just one chipotle. I put in the entire JAR of chipotles!
Now, whenever a dish I make has a little heat, the boys love to tease me and ask if I read the recipe correctly, or if I put in an entire can of chipotles.
This experience reminded me of Revelation 3:15-16. John writes to the church in Laodicea,
I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were one or the other! So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to vomit you out of my mouth!
In this scripture, John is of course referring to spiritual fervor. He admonishes the church in Laodicea to turn up their spiritual heat! I was thinking about what a clear, picture that is for us as we’ve all certainly experienced food the wrong temperature and spit it out of our mouth! John’s call to the Laodiceans is one for devotion and action.
What temperature would you give your spiritual journey right now? Are you hot, luke warm or cold? If you’re not hot, what might you do to change that?