gods_recipe

God’s Recipe for Life, by Gini Kittle

When my daughter Rachel was a little girl, she and her best friend decided they wanted to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies. She had watched me and assisted me many times in the kitchen doing just that, so I had no reservations allowing the two of them to have at it. I went off to another part of the house to do something but returned when my daughter summoned me back because we didn’t have enough baking soda to finish the recipe. We went through the recipe together going over what they had already mixed in the big, yellow bowl. When we got to the flour, she replied that she and her friend decided to use baking soda instead of flour because they didn't like the way flour made a dust cloud when you poured it in the bowl. That was when they had discovered we didn’t have quite enough baking soda to substitute for the flour.

Needless to say, we had a baking lesson. I explained to the girls how important it was to follow the recipe and use the ingredients it called for! We got out another bowl and started over with the right ingredients, and then in a short time the house was filled with the delicious smell of cookies hot from the oven.

God has a good recipe for us to follow for our lives found in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Like any recipe, it is important that we use all the ingredients to get the intended outcome. We need to rejoice even when things aren’t going quite the way we want. It’s important that we are people of prayer — not just asking God for things, but spending time with God in prayer. And we need to have thank-filled hearts that recognize that the Lord has done great things for us and given us far more than we deserve. All of this, not just the part we like, is God’s perfect recipe for our lives. If we will follow His recipe, our lives will also produce a pleasing aroma both to the Lord and others around us.