We went for our annual visit to see Lucas in the panhandle and one morning he drove me across Pensacola Bay to a world famous fresh seafood market—Joe Patti's. He had taken me one year before, after I had already bought the food we needed for our stay, but I was entranced with pile after pile of fish that had come from both the Bay and the Gulf in a boat only steps from the front door of that shop that very morning. So I told him that the next time I would buy and cook something special for him.
My plan was for crab stuffed red snapper, a recipe I had cobbled together after doing some research online and in the various cookbooks lining my shelves. That snapper was beautiful, and I picked out a pound and a half fillet for the three of us, which was treated like gold as the young lady carefully wrapped it, then placed it on ice next to a cashier. But I still needed the crabmeat. I am used to 8 ounce containers of fresh crab where I live, but all of these were a full pound, and that made me a little chintzy. Instead of jumbo lump, I picked up claw meat, and then promptly forgot the problem with that—I neglected to pick through it and pull out any extraneous shell. That is, until my first bite gave me a solid crunch where there should not have been any. I am happy to say that it was actually fairly clean for claw meat and I got most of the shell, so Lucas still had the enjoyment of an excellent seafood dinner with some of the best fish he ever ate.
But I wonder if most of us aren't claw meat. We have been entirely too careless in cleaning up our lives and have let a few things slip that we shouldn't have. Especially if we have "grown up in the church" as we are prone to say, and have never committed any of the heinous sins we look down on the rest of the world for, it's easy to think we are nice jumbo lump crabmeat and the Lord ought to be happy he has us. Do you think I am exaggerating? I have seen too many people look down on people "straight off the street," just as Simon the Pharisee looked down on the brave woman who made her way into his party and anointed Jesus. "She loves me more than you do, Simon," Jesus as much as said, and made it plain whom he preferred as his disciple.
The thing about crabmeat is that even jumbo lump crabmeat needs to be picked through and it's a whole lot easier to find the shell! Sin always finds its way in the door no matter who we are, how long we have been sitting on a pew, nor how well we think we are doing. Let's be careful about judging others when we need a good pick-through ourselves.
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand (Rom 14:4).
Dene Ward
My plan was for crab stuffed red snapper, a recipe I had cobbled together after doing some research online and in the various cookbooks lining my shelves. That snapper was beautiful, and I picked out a pound and a half fillet for the three of us, which was treated like gold as the young lady carefully wrapped it, then placed it on ice next to a cashier. But I still needed the crabmeat. I am used to 8 ounce containers of fresh crab where I live, but all of these were a full pound, and that made me a little chintzy. Instead of jumbo lump, I picked up claw meat, and then promptly forgot the problem with that—I neglected to pick through it and pull out any extraneous shell. That is, until my first bite gave me a solid crunch where there should not have been any. I am happy to say that it was actually fairly clean for claw meat and I got most of the shell, so Lucas still had the enjoyment of an excellent seafood dinner with some of the best fish he ever ate.
But I wonder if most of us aren't claw meat. We have been entirely too careless in cleaning up our lives and have let a few things slip that we shouldn't have. Especially if we have "grown up in the church" as we are prone to say, and have never committed any of the heinous sins we look down on the rest of the world for, it's easy to think we are nice jumbo lump crabmeat and the Lord ought to be happy he has us. Do you think I am exaggerating? I have seen too many people look down on people "straight off the street," just as Simon the Pharisee looked down on the brave woman who made her way into his party and anointed Jesus. "She loves me more than you do, Simon," Jesus as much as said, and made it plain whom he preferred as his disciple.
The thing about crabmeat is that even jumbo lump crabmeat needs to be picked through and it's a whole lot easier to find the shell! Sin always finds its way in the door no matter who we are, how long we have been sitting on a pew, nor how well we think we are doing. Let's be careful about judging others when we need a good pick-through ourselves.
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand (Rom 14:4).
Dene Ward
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