Have you ever tried to mix baking and ministry? Are you a man? Well I have done and am all of the previous. The results can be pretty funny. Sundays are looooong days that begin at 5:00 am. And so Brenda was traveling again yesterday, on the road as usual, and so I have two goals here, fix myself breakfast and make some muffins for the fellowship time at the church. But like a typical man, I did not make certain that I had all the ingredients prior to starting this process.
So I fired the oven up, got out the muffin pan, greased it up, started mixing all the batter in and then those expensive blueberries! Then the water, then the eggs, and then the vegetable oil . . . WHAT, no OIL! It’s 6:00 am on a Sunday morning, no stores are open yet, and I have to be at the church in a bit over an hour for worship practice! So the best I could do was melt some butter we had and add that to the mix.
The results were debatable, yet no one came up to me at church and said, “Who baked those terrible muffins!?” I would have gladly admitted that I was the culprit, but thankfully no one said a word. But it got me to thinking about how many things in my life are like making blueberry muffins. I think I often approach my spiritual life in the same manner . . . busily working at it, without counting the cost of this action, or making certain that I have the proper elements in place to accomplish the goal. It seems to me that this is a risky (and perhaps ungodly) way to live and one that has great potential for harm. I want to live more carefully than that . . . and I think in order to do so, I will have to slow down the pace a bit more than I am currently living, and be a bit more thoughtful about where I am heading, and where that will take us all.
So I fired the oven up, got out the muffin pan, greased it up, started mixing all the batter in and then those expensive blueberries! Then the water, then the eggs, and then the vegetable oil . . . WHAT, no OIL! It’s 6:00 am on a Sunday morning, no stores are open yet, and I have to be at the church in a bit over an hour for worship practice! So the best I could do was melt some butter we had and add that to the mix.
The results were debatable, yet no one came up to me at church and said, “Who baked those terrible muffins!?” I would have gladly admitted that I was the culprit, but thankfully no one said a word. But it got me to thinking about how many things in my life are like making blueberry muffins. I think I often approach my spiritual life in the same manner . . . busily working at it, without counting the cost of this action, or making certain that I have the proper elements in place to accomplish the goal. It seems to me that this is a risky (and perhaps ungodly) way to live and one that has great potential for harm. I want to live more carefully than that . . . and I think in order to do so, I will have to slow down the pace a bit more than I am currently living, and be a bit more thoughtful about where I am heading, and where that will take us all.
2 comments:
Wow Joan! That totally rocks . . . can I quote you on some of this in my message on Sunday? D
Way to go Joanie - thanks for that Manna devo :-)
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