Many readers are familiar with the Food Network Channel’s culinary competitions. One of the longest running and most popular of these is Chopped. In this fast-paced reality show, four contestants are given a basket of four identical mystery ingredients from which they must prepare a dish in limited time. They may supplement additional ingredients from the common pantry and utilize the best of stoves, ovens, and food prep equipment, but the featured ingredients must be utilized in each dish.
There are three rounds of competition including appetizer, entrée, and dessert and ingredients might include anything from gummi bears to goat shoulders. After each round, a panel of celebrity chefs evaluates each plate and eliminates, or “chops,” one person per course until one winner is left standing. Only the most creative, resourceful, and diligent cooks survive and receive the $10,000 prize.
Nancy and I enjoy watching this occasionally and imagine what we might concoct if given similar scenarios. Since my cooking skills are severely limited, my dishes would be massive disasters but the appetizing creations they produce have inspired me to make more than one trip to our refrigerator.
There are many parallels between this competition and life, as well as some key differences. For starters, we are all handed a birth basket that includes our physical attributes. Our hair color, voice pitch, genetic predispositions for disease, height, weight and more are all fixed ingredients we have to work with. Our social and economic statuses are also heavy influences we must navigate in putting together a tasty life.
Our parents, siblings, home-lives, and communities may be considered the equipment we have to process our ingredients. Thankfully there is a pantry of common items to draw from composed of our educational opportunities through elementary, middle, and high schools. Higher education, trade schools, and military training are also options that “life chefs” can choose from.
But there are a number of key differences. Unlike the television show, not everyone receives the same ingredients. In fact, no two human baskets are identical. Each of us is a unique creation of God with distinctive skills, abilities, and opportunities. In addition, we don’t all have access to the same equipment as some homes encourage development of a desirable dish while others actually discourage it.
Another key difference is time. Obviously most of us have more than the 20-30 minutes allowed for each cooking round, but not all have the same number of years. Some are gifted with over 100 while others have only a fraction of that. The challenge is to make the most of what we do have in the time we are allotted. If our timer goes off prematurely, we should be found diligently using all our resources to prepare a meal fit for our King, even if we don’t get to finish it.
In the competition, contestants race around to use each minute productively. They realize if they squander even a second, they can never get it back and it may cost them dearly. So too we must use each moment God grants us wisely, not knowing when our timer will expire.
In addition, life is not a contest. Thankfully, we are allowed to help each other maximize our ingredients and the best meals are prepared by those who cooperate. We can share ideas, ingredients, labor, and even cleanup to produce delicious dishes. Thankfully, we do not have a judge waiting to chop us for inferior effort. Instead He cheers us on and helps us. Since salvation is free and none of our efforts can earn it anyway, those who have accepted it have the freedom to use what He’s provided to glorify Him and bless others.
As the Chopped chefs battle it out each week, may their ingenuity, determination, and purpose remind us to make the most of whatever baskets we have received knowing that our Judge eagerly rewards our completed work. Culinary Blessings, George