Idolatry of the mind and trusting God

I was watching this video by Prof John Lennox and a few things he said struck me. 

First. Lennox states, "The temptation [in the Garden of Eden] surrounded the human satisfaction of three desires: the basic appetite for food, the desire for aesthetic satisfaction, and intellectual desire for human flourishing ('You shall be as God')." The question asked of Eve, "Did God really say...?" was crafted to get Eve to question God's word. And I think the sly, "You won't die," that followed it was really insidious. It insinuates: "Are you sure? Do you really trust that He told you the truth? Maybe He was withholding something good from you."

I see parallels between this and situations when we doubt God because He hasn't answered our prayers in the way we wanted or hasn't given us what we wanted. They may not be inherently selfish prayers, such as praying for healing for ourselves or for a loved one. But when the healing doesn't come, doubt can start to creep in and the whispers start: "Does God really love me? If He does, then why wouldn't He do this for me? Why would He let me continue to suffer like this? Why would He choose to withhold His blessing from me by not granting me this thing?"

Lennox says, "The biggest lesson is that since sin entered the world through human failure to trust God and grasping at independence from God, the way back to God will involve learning to trust Him and His word." And so, "the enemy will do everything he can to undermine your confidence in the word of God and His truth." Which, I remember Timothy Keller saying, part of it is somehow getting us to think or to believe that we know better than God. That we know what our lives are supposed to look like, and this is not how things were supposed to go, so something is wrong and God ought to fix it to be the way I think it should be, the way I want it to be. 

Surrendering is hard, but I think if we are serious about that line in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," then it means we do have to reconcile ourselves to His will, even when it doesn't align with our will or what we think is best for ourselves. For so many years I would recite the Lord's Prayer without even thinking about what I was saying... but really, if we are praying that God's will be done on earth, that also means God's will be done in my life and by extension, it means my will might not get done. Urgh. No one likes to think about that, I know. 

Second. John Lennox said that for highly educated or highly knowledgeable and/or intellectual people, the danger would be idolatry of the mind. Why? Because we can come to depend on our mind, our arguments, our ability to rationalise and reason things out, rather than depending on God. The contrast is clear: "[Idolatry] is where I trust my mind and my intellectual ability and then I use God when I get stuck. Christianity is when I trust God and use my mind." 

He used the example of King Solomon to whom God gave great wisdom but who, despite all his wisdom, still made poor decisions, pursuing power, wealth, and foreign alliances, securing the latter through hundreds of wives and concubines. As I was thinking about this, it struck me that although God granted Solomon wisdom, the wisdom that Solomon ended up using was his own and not God's. What I mean is, when he used his wisdom, he was using rational thinking (having more allies = better protection) which is a human kind of wisdom; he wasn't being guided by God's wisdom. 

Paul wrote in the New Testament that "the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom" (1 Cor 1:25), referring to the idea that it seemed foolish to believe that Christ, who had been sentenced to a painful death as a criminal and therefore appeared utterly wretched and powerless in human eyes, could possibly be the Saviour of all mankind. God's wisdom often does look like foolishness because "we live by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor 5:7) so sometimes things just don't make sense if we try to reason them out through a human lens. 

I felt personally convicted when Lennox talked about idolatry of the mind because, well, I also like to pride myself on my intellect and my logic and my ability to rationally reason things out. It's a good question to ask myself, the question Lennox posed: Do I trust God and use my mind, or do I trust my mind and use God? I often go back to that verse about walking by faith, not by sight, and remind myself that what I see is not what all there is. Therefore, if I base my deductions and conclusions on only what I see and what I know, it may very well be a flawed equation. 

One example I've used when talking with friends is when a friend lamented that she is a bit too old to be in the job market because she's in her late forties and the conventional wisdom is that companies don't like to hire people this age because they'd have to pay a higher salary compared to hiring someone with less experience. I told her not to look at statistics and probabilities because that is human wisdom, but we need to account for the unseen hand of God and trust that He will open doors for her to be where He wants her to be. 

Some people might think I'm being naïve or too idealistic. But I absolutely do believe that if God wanted you to have that job, even if it doesn't make logical sense, you will have that job. I'm not saying the job will drop from heaven or that you won't have to apply for it and interview for it just like you would with any other job. But I'm saying that if we really believe that God has a plan for our lives and has written each day of our lives in His book before we even came to be (Psalm 139:16), we have to remember that He's working behind the scenes, and trust Him to do His thing. Not just look around us and see all the obstacles, as Elisha's servant did in 2 Kings 6. The servant was full of fear because the king had sent a great army to surround the city, trapping Elisa and his servant inside. But when the servant's eyes were opened, he saw that there were horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. So... we live by faith, not by sight. We don't see the chariots of fire, but we have to have faith that they are there. That God is there. He confounds human wisdom. Trust Him, not trust my mind, my abilities, my knowledge, or whatever else. 

Salad experiment... and the cost of eating healthy

• One baby romaine lettuce 

• One-quarter pack of pea sprouts (roughly 37.5g)

• Half pack of cherry tomatoes (roughly 137.5g) (quite a few more tomatoes than in picture lol) 

• One small can Ayam brand sweet corn (140g)

• One tub Mézete Baba ghanouj (60g) - this replaced any salad dressing

• Croutons

I think I got a decent balance of flavours. The sweet corn and tomatoes for a little bit of sweetness and the baba ghanouj for some tartness. 

In terms of nutrition, the baba ghanouj provided 4g protein and some dietary fibre (also 4g) but most fibre would have been from the romaine lettuce, pea sprouts, sweet corn and tomatoes. I thought of adding hard-boiled eggs for added protein but was too lazy to cook them 🫣 

As far as cost goes, I got the pea sprouts at 50% off but still, this isn't a cheap salad by any calculation, when you consider that the baba ghanouj cost about RM15 on its own. Then factor in all the other ingredients... definitely more than RM25 in total.

Chicken burger with real chicken 😂

A few days ago, I posted about cooking the drumsticks and chicken thighs in the air fryer. That gave me an idea: I could air-fry a boneless chicken thigh and make a burger with it. Healthier than using a commercially-made frozen burger patty, right? 

So I tried it, and ta-dah! This was the result. It was yummy! 

I couldn't find boneless thighs in the Village Grocer near me, so I bought "chicken chop" instead, which is basically a deboned whole chicken leg. I prepared the chicken the same way and cooked it for the same amount of time. 

The burger has: 

• mayonnaise

• tomato sauce (ketchup)

• butter (on the bun) 

• dill pickles/gherkins

• a slice of cheddar cheese

• baby romaine lettuce leaves

Recommended nutrient intakes

I got curious about this issue because I watched a Facebook reel which said most Americans are consuming more than the recommended daily intake of protein, and that excess protein can actually harm cardiovascular health -- it contributes to build-up of plaque in arteries, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes. 

According to the US Department of Agriculture, every 100g of cooked skinless chicken thigh contains 24.6g of protein, and 100g of eggs contains 12.6g of protein. Fun fact, about 60-65% of the egg's weight comes from the egg white and a 2023 study found that "protein content in the egg white is 10.9% w/w and 15.9% w/w in the egg yolk" ("w/w" meaning "weight on weight, a measurement used in chemistry)... so there is slightly more protein in the yolk, but not by much. 

One chicken thigh varies in weight depending on size, of course. I was in the supermarket today and chicken thighs were sold in packs of two, which ranged from 296g per pack to 432g per pack. So one thigh is about 150g to maybe 215g depending on size. I usually have one thigh with lunch every day (in addition to vegetables and a bit of rice). So that would be at least 36.9g of protein at the lower estimate of weight.

Based on my research, it seems that Grade A or large eggs in Malaysia are about 60-70g each depending on supplier. So if you eat 2 eggs a day, you're getting between 15.12g to 17.64g of protein, if my calculations are correct. Let's go with the lower number, to be conservative. So one chicken thigh + 2 eggs = at least 52g of protein a day.

General protein intake recommendations are at least 0.8g of protein daily per kg of body weight to prevent deficiency. I definitely weigh more than 41.6kg. Hmmm. The Mayo Clinic adds that people over 40 or 50 need more protein to prevent losing muscle mass, also known as sarcopenia, which tends to come with aging (I assume this applies to sedentary and non-athletic people; the article didn't specify). They recommend 1-1.2 g of protein per kg.

Camembert cheese, pictured above, is a cheese I like. I sometimes eat it with crackers or wafers as a snack. One block of cheese is 125g and contains 22.5g of protein. Sometimes I can eat like one-third of a block at one go. That would be... 7.5g of protein. 7.5g added to the 52g of protein a day that I already calculated earlier is 59.5g... a bit closer to what I should be getting. 

Nutrient intake is tricky because it is measured by the weight of the food, which makes sense from a scientific viewpoint, but when we buy food we generally think of bunches or pieces (biji!), not weight. The World Health Organisation recommends consuming 400g of fruits and vegetables daily, but what does 400g even look like? One pack of shiitake mushrooms from Jaya or Village Grocer is 150g and one pack of baby spinach leaves is 100g, I know that much. I definitely cannot eat a whole pack of mushrooms and baby spinach leaves in a day. How could anyone possibly reach the 400g requirement? 

I also don't know how many grams four slices of papaya or quarter of a dragon fruit are -- things that I quite often eat. Working in the dark here. 

Air-fried chicken drumsticks recipe

Discovered an absolutely delish way to airfry chicken drumsticks (or thighs). 

Marinade with 

• Onion powder

• Garlic powder

• Salt

• White pepper

• Oregano 

• Mayonnaise (apparently it makes the chicken stay juicy and tender)

• Optional: Nutmeg powder (I used it because I had it) 

Airfry 10 mins, flip drumsticks airfry another 10 mins. 

I did not BELIEVE they could be so delicious from something so simple. Not crispy but sooooooo yummy. I later tried this with chicken thighs too, as I prefer thighs to drumsticks. Still worked a charm -- pic as evidence 🤣 (I know it is not a great pic... I couldn't be bothered with plating beautifully cos I was eating the thigh by itself, with no other accompanying dishes 😂) 

AI slop is permeating the Internet and nobody is noticing

I started reading on Wattpad sometime last year, drawn to GroveltoHeA's stories. But recently I've noticed that so many of the Wattpad stories (by other authors) are starting to have the same staccato cadence of writing: with just one or two sentences per paragraph, as if a paragraph cannot hold a full thought. 

It's like these authors are all writing the same way. There's no variety, no distinctive way of recognizing one author's style from another. It's giving AI, and it's very disappointing. I mean, I don't know for sure if they are using AI or not, but it doesn't make sense for everyone to be writing the same way all of a sudden.

I also see this in a lot of shared Facebook posts -- the human interest stories. But what is scary is that no one seems to be noticing. I saw people in my reading groups commenting, "Oh, this was a good story" but could you not see that the writing was so stilted and canned? 

What this is telling me is that people can't tell good writing from bad. And the people that can tell are slowly being "trained" not to notice, because guess what? When you read the same type of thing often enough, it becomes normal and your brain stops telling you that hey, this piece of writing isn't up to the usual standards, because the "usual standards" have slipped down. 

And, AI is just going to continue spotting out more of the same, because AI is trained on stuff posted on the internet, so AI will scrape Wattpad and then be all like, "Yes, this confirms the pattern! This is desirable!" and then we are all screwed. 

This is all very depressing to me. Writing is supposed to be a creative endeavour. Like all forms of art, it's about self-expression, giving form to your thoughts and feelings and ideas. You express yourself in a way that is unique to you. The way you write, your voice, is personal. The idea that a piece of writing produced by AI can be just as good is antithetical to the whole point and reason for writing. 

When breakfast looks super presentable hehe

Very proud of this breakfast, so must post! Hahaha. I took a bite of it before I realised that, hey it looks quite impressive & Instagrammable, should take photo 🤣

Had time this morning due to the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holiday, so I put this together. Poached egg, avocado, and "herbs & spices" cream cheese spread on buttered sourdough bread. 

I used a shortcut for poaching the eggs: Fill a medium-sized bowl halfway with water, crack a raw egg into the water. Microwave for 1 min 20 secs (timing depends on your microwave and how done you want your yolk to be; it took a bit of experimentation to discover the perfect timing for mine). Scoop out the egg and serve. 

This Arla brand is the cream cheese spread I used. I like the tanginess and that it doesn't just taste like cheese, if that makes sense? It doesn't taste sweet, more savory. 

Loved the breakfast, 10/10 would do again. If only all mornings could be this leisurely!