Late night lessons

I am a night owl. I love the hours between 5:00 p.m.-12:00 a.m. That is the time when I get most of my work done and when I'm at my most creative. The only thing that might be better about the morning is coffee.
Being a night person I've discovered various stages of tiredness that usually start setting in around 11:30. One is the "I'm so tired that I'm slurring my words like a drunk person and finding everything really funny" stage. My friend Stephanie finds this one very amusing because I'm usually talking to her on the phone when it happens. In fact, I think she's the one who pointed it out to me.
Another is the "everyone in this room is stupid and being mean to me and I wish they'd all just go away" stage. Living alone, this one's pretty rare. It only happens when I've spent the day (or a few days) with other people and not getting enough introvert time.
The last one is the "everything on tv is real!" stage. It happens when I stay up too late watching tv. I start becoming very empathetic with everything that's happening in the show I'm watching. The first time I really noticed this was a couple of years ago when I stayed up too late watching an episode of "24". I remember it was the episode where there was a nuclear bomb about to detonate and Jack was going to have to fly it out into the desert at the cost of his own life. But, of course, someone else--who was going to die anyway of radiation poisoning--flew the plane out into the desert so that Jack could live. I was so into the show that I felt really distressed because a nuclear bomb had gone off in the United States! All lines between reality and fantasy were gone.

One night last week I had a similar experience while watching the reality tv show "The Biggest Loser"--or as my dad has been known to call it "those biggest bunch of losers" (I'm not sure if this is on purpose or if he just can't remember the name). Celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito was on and the contestants had a challenge to choose one of his recipes and fix it, only doing it using healthier ingredients (in other words--leaving out the butter and cream). When it came time for the contestants to present their dishes to Rocco I was so nervous and so glad that I didn't have to cook something for a real chef to judge. Especially when it's their own recipe! Yikes! He was very intimidating while he was judging the teams culinary creations. Finally, he announced that the black team won and their reward was that he would cook them a meal that night. It actually turned out that he didn't just cook them a meal, he actually brought them into the kitchen and taught them how to cook with some hands on experience. They did alot of the work but he was always there to make sure that they never got too far away from his plan. He was really nice to them and encouraged them alot while they were cooking and eating their meal. It made me so happy to watch.
Well, I don't know what happened in the next 5 minutes of the show because all of the sudden my mind was off in "Jen Land" thinking of all the spiritual applications of what I had just seen! Some people see God as the "first" Rocco. God gives us the "recipe" for life and then just sits by silent and stone faced waiting for our results. There is the ever present threat of judgment if standards are not met or a mistake is made. But I think God is really more like the "second" Rocco. He gives us the recipe and then stays by our side to guide us as we carry out the work He's given us to do. It's not all sunshine and daisies--there is also training and discipline that goes along with the encouragement and blessings (Rocco was VERY strict when giving instructions on the proper way to cook steak) but it's all for a purpose. In Rocco's case, teaching others how to make the healthiest, most delicious meal possible, so that the contestants can lose weight and be healthy. In God's case to glorify himself and transform us into the image of Christ, so that we will no longer be slaves to sin but be able to live out the abundant life God has planned for us. Rocco was the master chef who condescended to share his knowledge and skills with people who needed his help, and he did it very graciously. The contestants honored his chef skills by listening to him, learning from Him and being thankful that he took the time to help them.
That's what our worship of God is. We are never going to be able to give something to God that he hasn't first given us. So the best we can do is humbly listen to Him, learn from Him, imitate Him, and praise Him for the hard-to-grasp concept that the God of the universe humbled himself to use His "skills" on our behalf. And He did it out of His kindness and love. Without Him we are nothing and nothing we can be compares to Him!
Now I'm sure I'm not the first person to think up some sort of "master chef" analogy for God, but that night it was totally blowing my mind. Hmmm, maybe I should stop staying up so late.
On the other hand, what if all late night tv caused me to think such spiritual thoughts! I could watch tv and write my Bible lessons at the same time!