Fast Cars and Furious Chefs

by Dave Meurer

I like a TV show that features an enraged, spittle-emitting chef screaming at his cooks and hurling pans across the kitchen. The guy is one part culinary genius and one part crazed badger. True, I have my own struggles with anger, but compared to that screaming chef, I am Saint Francis of Assisi spreading serenity through a forest of grateful woodland creatures. I think this is why I keep tuning in. The guy makes me look good.

Comparisons can let you cut yourself a lot of slack. If you set the bar low enough and only compare yourself with people who are spectacularly worse than you are, you can feel awesome about yourself without having to do the hard work of actually changing. I know this is a ridiculous rationalization on my part. The fact that I have not resorted to fits of kitchen-destroying rage does not diminish the times when I am surly because things aren't going my way.

Early in my married life, I was a fanatic about being on time. If we were one minute late for church, my jaw would be clenched for hours. I think God gave me kids who are prone to misplace their shoes to guarantee I would be late — a lot — and thus be forced to confront my inner jerk.

Because my standard is Jesus, not some pan-hurling chef, I continue to work on my tendency toward anger. The bar is set high. So high, in fact, that I need God's help to reach it.

My attempts are sometimes less than graceful. I recently found myself in a parking lot, scribbling a helpful note to the apparently blind driver of a bright red Corvette who had taken two parking spaces. My wife asked to see the note, which I reluctantly handed over.

"Hmm," she mused. "I'm just not picturing Jesus using a term like blithering moron with the navigational skills of a diseased armadillo."

Long pause.

I really wanted to slap the note on the windshield of that car. And I would have set a really bad example for my wife and kids. Grudgingly, I tore up the note.

Jesus set the standard. So each day I ask God for the power to be the husband and father He wants me to be.