Orange Juice
Top Chef is one of my favorite shows. For the uninitiated, it is a cooking competition that pits some of the best chefs in the country against each other to compete for the title of Top Chef. Some of the most famous chefs in the country found their stars skyrocketing from the show, even when they didn’t win. This show makes stars from the Voltaggio brothers to Kwame Onuwachi to Brooke Williamson.
Top Chef is more than just a cooking competition. We’re drawn in by the stories of the contestants. Whether it’s the chef who went from being a juvenile delinquent to turning his life around by getting a job in the kitchen or the chef who dropped everything in his home country to start over and see if he could make it in America, their journeys are just as compelling as their cooking. Admittedly, this season isn’t the best. It’s not where I would tell you to start if you were new to the show. I think I would tell you to go with Seattle or Boston.
There is one particularly compelling story from this season. This season occurs in Wisconsin; every season usually has a hometown competitor. For Wisconsin, it’s Milwaukee native Chef Dan Jacobs. This week, Dan will compete in the finale for the right to be called Top Chef, but it’s not the only battle he’s facing.
Dan walks with a cane and has a noticeable limp. Chef Jacobs has Kennedy’s Disease, a genetic neuromuscular ailment in which a person’s muscles weaken and atrophy over time. His body is breaking down, and he can do nothing about it. Despite his diagnosis and inevitable outcome, Dan is committed to pushing himself to the limit. He will be the best chef he can possibly be with whatever he has left. Dan is searching for the limit.
I grew up in the “Be all you can be” generation. That was the slogan for the Army in their commercials back in the 90s. You can watch a few of them here. At the same time, we were inundated by people who accomplished incredible things by 30: the Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs of the world. The Forbes 30 under 30 list reminded you of what you haven’t done.
Many Millennials, in particular, grew up with a semi-silent expectation of greatness.
In John 14, Jesus told his disciples they would do greater things than him. There has been a ton of scholarship about what this passage means. I will take the perspective that Jesus meant the extent of our ministries and how far they can go.
The main reason is that Jesus accomplished the greatest work in history. He paid the price to restore our relationship with the Father. Earlier in the chapter, in verse 4, Jesus makes one of his more famous declarations proclaiming to be the way, truth, and life, with no one coming to the Father except through him. We’re not beating that.
Jesus probably never traveled more than 60 miles from his home. As he’s talking to his disciples, nearly all of them would go far beyond that to spread his message.
How much more for us? We live in an era of unprecedented access. My little Substack is read by people 3,000 miles away from me. We can disseminate information and ideas at what is a scary rate.
I don’t believe that we are all called to go to the world's furthest corners, but we can wonder if we are giving it all for the glory of God and the good of this world.
This doesn’t mean every single person will touch millions of lives, but I think there is something to be said for our spheres of influence. How we impact the spaces where we live, work, and play.
My career started in finance. In my earliest days, I was repeatedly disparaged, very specifically being called a s***head multiple times. There were no other Christians there, as far as I knew. That always stuck with me. What would it have looked like for more Christians to be in that space challenging the culture? Christians who could have and would have said, “Hey, we don’t speak to or treat people that way.”
Thinking about my most recent post and the conversation I just had with Jay, what could the conversations around defining life have been like if more Christians had been in those rooms? The Church is constantly missing the boat on these massive tent pole issues. We waited to address it at our front door, even though we saw the car coming from miles away.
I think we have the same opportunity before us today with Gen Z. Every generation has its “thing,” and maybe this is ours. Maybe there is an opportunity to pull an entire generation or three from the brink.
All the data and anecdotal conversations say that we’ve lost them. Millennials are not returning to church, which means Gen Alpha isn’t being dragged along with them. There is a moment before us. Will we seize it?
What Holds You Back?
Jesus said we would do greater things, so what’s holding us back? For some people, the restrictions are external: oppression, lack of resources, and support. For some of us, it’s internal: the fear, anxiety, and stress we live with hold us back.
What would a fearless life look like? I don’t know if it's possible, but certainly we could have more courage. Living courageously will help us be in the places that God has called us to be.
It takes a great deal of prayer and solid community to get there. We don’t live this life alone, and I think we are a little too prone to isolation in our “be all you can be” dog-eat-dog world. We think that we have to figure it out by ourselves. Trust the people of God to walk with you as you try to find your space.
Chef Dan is fighting to squeeze every bit of juice out of the orange that is his life. It is both inspiring and humbling. He knows his body is breaking down. No one would blame him for quitting and resigning to what he knows life will be. Instead, he wakes up every single day and fights through the pain to do the thing he believes he was created to do.
I may never be the most excellent writer or thinker, I may never get these books published, or I may never achieve the success I have in mind, but I want to end this life hearing the words “Well done,” knowing that I maximized every bit of what God has given me.