I have made a number of errors in cooking and the following are some of the most humorous.  I’m telling on myself, for there is a lesson here, whether in cooking, building a house, knitting, or whatever we do in life which calls for a pattern.  If we want any of these to turn out well, we must follow the pattern.  Otherwise, as in my situations, things just don’t turn out too well.

My friend called me around midnight three years ago and told me he didn’t know if he was having a stroke.  He got up to go to the bathroom and ran into a door which knocked him down.  As it turned out, when I arrived to check on him, he had broken his shoulder.  He was concerned about his dog, being able to feed his cows, horse, and cooking for himself.  I told him I would take care of his animals and would make some meals for him to freeze and he could have those while recuperating from his broken shoulder.

One day while cooking fried chicken for him, I noticed what I thought was an extra piece of chicken.  I thought to myself:  A bakers dozen.  How nice of that company to do that for the customer.  After preparing his meal and saying his prayer, he reached for a piece of chicken.  He took a bite and told me.  You fried the diaper!  He laughed so hard.  It hurt my feelings at first, but then I thought it hilarious as well.  Everyone in town still brings it up to me.  I just laugh and go on.  No good deed goes unpunished.  Haaaaaa!

Later, I decided to make him a pumpkin pie.  I mixed all of the ingredients, placed the pie in the oven and halfway through the baking process, it occurred to me I had forgotten the sugar (rather an important ingredient in the pie).  Once again he laughed at me.  I haven’t lived that down as well.  And of course everyone in town knows of that cooking error. Haaa!

Then, he told me he had not had a caramel pie in well over 50 years.  His wife made it once.  He told her it wasn’t like his mom’s and he never got another throughout their 60 year marriage, at least until his friend (me).  I got the recipe and made the custard fine, but when it came to the caramelized sugar, well, that didn’t turn out so well.  I never made a pie just like this, and this particular pie called for the caramelization of sugar.  I set off the fire alarms in my house for the heat was too high.  He was pretty good about the pie and didn’t say much.  Probably because his wife never made another and thought his friend might not as well.  Since, I have perfected the pie and it is a requested fairly often.  It pays to follow the instructions in all things, including God’s Word.

When it comes to God’s Word, we must follow the pattern.  Had Noah not followed the pattern of building to the specifications as God told him, neither he nor his family would have been saved during the destruction of the earth by the flood.

“Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”      Genesis 6:22

Nadab and Abihu did not follow God’s pattern and were killed at the altar.

“And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not.  And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.”    Leviticus 10:1-2

Naaman had leprosy and was not healed until he followed the pattern.

“Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?  May I not wash in them, and be clean?   So he turned and went away in a rage.  And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?  Then went he down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan according to the saying of the man of God:  and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he as clean.”    II Kings 5:12-14

Moses did not enter the Promised Land for his failure to follow the pattern.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes;  and it shall give forth water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock:  so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.  And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as He commanded him.  And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?  And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice:  and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.  And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.”    Numbers 20:7-12

Adam and Eve did not follow the pattern God gave them and they, too, were ousted from the garden.

“Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.  So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”    Genesis 3:23-24

There is still a pattern for worshiping God.  Worshiping Him is not a matter of how we want, but following His plan of salvation which leads to eternal life.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.”   John 10:1

“God is a Spirit:  and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in Truth.”     John 4:24

“When in doubt, pull your Bible out.”    ~ Unknown

“It is better to be a self-made man, – filled according to God’s original pattern, – than to be half a man, made after some other man’s pattern.”    ~ Josiah Holland

Eileen Light