I don't like to cook. I don't mind doing the occasional company's-coming-over meal; I also prepare and deliver dinner once a month for a friend (who doesn't like to cook) as a birthday present, and I enjoy doing that. But the day-in, day-out cooking that I've been doing for my family for over 25 years is, well, drudgery. Most of the time I do it on auto pilot, with minimal thought or emotion involved. But there are days, and my family can attest to this, that I can have one whopping negative attitude about preparing another meal. And sometimes I just don't; prepare the meal, that is. There's nothing wrong with cereal for dinner.

I have been a Christian my whole married life, and this meal preparation thing has been a real "grace grower" for me. (In the division of labor in our house, cooking was a chore that I chose over, say, auto maintenance and repair - which my husband does. I'm not looking to change my choice, I just wish we could afford to have someone do the cooking and fix the cars.)

So why am I telling you all this? Because of the drudgery part of it that I first drew your attention to in the subject line and then, with great literary finesse, brought up again in the opening paragraph. Oswald Chambers, (can you tell I like this guy?) calls drudgery "the mean grubby things" that immediately show whether or not we are spiritually real and that it is "one of the finest touchstones of character there is." How so? Because it reveals what's really in our hearts. Obviously when I'm having that lousy attitude about cooking dinner, and letting my family know about it through sighs and whines and complaints, or acting the martyr over fixing a box of mac and cheese and baking a meatloaf, my spiritual aura is less than stellar. You definitely cannot "feel the love".

These days, more often than not, I will literally pray about my attitude and ask God to forgive me for the totally selfish thoughts I have about not wanting to cook and to give me better thoughts and attitudes. Most of the time this actually works, but if I'm still wallowing in "I don't wanna", then I pretend I'm making the meal for Jesus. For real. You may be thinking I'm some kind of religious nut bar to go to this extreme over "just a bad attitude", but one little ol' bad attitude makes for a bad heart, and I try to avoid that path when I'm aware enough to see it in front of me.

Jesus does the ultimate bit of drudgery when he washes the disciples' feet, and then encourages them (and us) to do the same for one another. He goes on to say that those who do these bits of drudgery, which usually involve putting others before ourselves, will be blessed in the doing. Whatever mundane and monotonous things we are called to do, whether it's cooking meals or going to a boring job, working in the nursery again or taking out the trash, drudgery requires the touch of God for it to have the light of God upon it. So when drudgery presents itself, and it always presents itself, my goal is to rise to the occasion without grumbling or frowning, to "Arise, shine" (Isaiah 60:1) and do the thing with a right heart.

(written 2/07)