Slavery & Bondservants

Slavery has been on my mind lately. I know. How fun to be me.

A couple of weeks ago, CCV had the very great pleasure of having Pastor Trent Renner preach. His sermon was titled "Bondservant vs. Slacktivist". And it made me think for days, and still does.

Slacktivism is a term that was coined in the the mid-90's and means that one is engaged, only on the surface, in causes. For instance, wearing a ribbon to support breast cancer, but not actually donating any money or pounding the pavement for awareness.

Pastor Renner was suggesting that American Christians tend to have a slacktivist mentality. We go through the motions, going to church, putting our kids in Sunday school, but when we leave service we go back to how we want to live, rather than putting Christ first in our lives.

His point was that either we are slacktivists or we are bondservants to Christ. A bondservant is one who serves out of love, reverence, and in total devotion.

In the Bible, the Hebrew word "doulas" is sometimes translated as slave. And as Americans we don't have a whole lot of fondness for the term slave. Doulas is correctly translated as bondservant. But unfortunately, when we read slave we don't want to have any part of it. And rightly so, I would say.

The American slavery period was not one that people regard with much joy. It was a terrible thing; people purchasing others, denying humane treatment, people regarded as property. This was not good. And thank the Lord the U.S. decided it was so horrible they were willing to fight to end it. However, because slavery in America was horrifying we can't fathom wanting to be in servitude to anyone but ourselves.

I think this has presented a bit of a conundrum with our call to be bondservants to Christ. Those of us who desire to follow Christ as Lord have to give over every part of our lives, and live in accordance with the Spirit. The beauty, of course, is that in living in servitude to Christ, we are free to become the person God has designed us. And it's not a life of emptiness. It's a life of purpose. It's a significant life. There is freedom in serving Christ.

Obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant. -Galatians 1:10 NLT

More Information Regarding the Laundry Soap

I received some questions about the Laundry Soap thing.

First off, you can find all of the ingredients for the Laundry soap at Fry's. They carry Borax, Arm & Hammer's Super Washing Soda, and Fels-Naptha.

I do recommend Fels-Naptha over any of the other laundry soaps because I prefer the scent. I just did a Zote bar, and while only a dollar at Wal-Mart, then scent is more industrial than I like. The Fels-Naptha is a bit more fresh. The Fels bar is 1.79 at Fry's. But still a significant savings over buying processed laundry detergent.

If you need a liquid detergent because you have a front-loader, the Duggar's have a recipe for that. I requires liquifying the detergent by cooking. I have a friend who does this and she likes it just fine.

If you have any skin allergies, I would suggest using a Dove Bar or Ivory Bar since they are supposed to be safe on skin. But if your skin reacts to either of those soaps, then you're better off buying the Free & Clear detergents. Or, do some research to find out if there is a non-allergenic soap out there.

Now, on to the Dishwasher detergent. I don't like it. So, I don't really recommend it. It has left a bit of a film on my dishes. At first I was just using the Borax/Super Washing Soda mixture, but I had a film on my dishes. So I thought maybe it was missing some sort of soap (a la Fels-Naptha in the laundry detergent), so I have started adding a smidge of liquid dishwasher detergent in the dispenser. This has helped, slightly. Next I'm going to try reducing the amount of Borax/Super Washing Soda amount in the dispenser (rather than 2 tablespoons, just 1) in addition to 1 tablespoon of liquid dishwasher detergent (Cascade).

I'm not totally giving up on the dishwasher detergent, but I'm tweaking it to see if I can improve on it. I'll keep you posted.

Recipes

So, among my million things to do, I have to make a Costco run. And I just don't have it in me to do it with my three in tow. Although Costco at lunchtime does suffice as lunch...I still don't have the energy to do it.

But I'm in the desperate situation of needing dishwasher detergent. Oh, the dilemma...

So, I googled dishwasher detergent recipe and look-y what I found. I just tried it and have no doubt that it will now replace Cascade. I already make my own laundry detergent, a la the Duggars, so I had Super Washing Soda and Borax on hand. I'm so glad that I found this! This saves us money, for sure. I very rarely find dishwasher detergent on sale, and we're running our dishwasher just about every night. We were going through LOTS of Cascade.

And in case you're wondering who has time to do all this, I would like to say that both of these recipes take almost no time at all. I probably spend 10 minutes making the laundry soap, every 6 or 7 weeks. That's how long the laundry soap will last. And the dishwasher detergent is no different time-wise than pouring in Cascade.

Also, some of you have expressed a desire to have more Asian recipes in your repertoire. I found one the other week on one of my new favorite blogs. (Thanks, Charissa!) This Sweets girl has some killer recipes. Check her out.

Anyways, I decided I would check her blog for a chicken/broccoli Asian-influenced recipe for dinner one night (needed to use up broccoli). And I'm so glad I checked her blog, 'cause this is one of my new favorites. Check out the Broccoli Mushroom Almond Chicken recipe!

I omitted the mushrooms as they are severely underappreciated by Mr. Wilhelmsen and children. (It is my goal for the rest of the year to change his mind in this area.) And the only problem I had is that I put in too much lemon. I doubled the amount of sauce (per Sweets suggestion), but I think I may have tripled the lemon unknowingly. So, go easy on the lemon if you try this. I used whole almonds that I roughly chopped. I think we all liked it, but it would have gone over much better if I had gone easy on the lemon.

Overall, I have been trying to do some new things, but also trying to refine what we like regularly.