Culinary Misadventures and the Reality of Prayer

Our kitchen has been ground zero for many culinary misadventures, including baking with our grandchildren.  Their creativity often insists on its own way, but with disastrous results, let me count the ways.  Even from an early age, the kids are learning that maybe -- just maybe-- there is a different way of doing things that is not their own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, it does matter that we use the ingredients listed in the recipe and in the right amounts.  And a cake does not just emerge from the oven when they think it might be ready. Whatever we are working on will not just turn out anyway...indeed, more often than not, not turn out at all.  Someone else --including that professionally trained chef -- may indeed know a lot more than we do.  What does it take to realize that?

And each one of the children have learned in real time:  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55. 9

Relinquishment of our own set ways is not a matter of letting go, but holding even tighter to something else.  And that would be God.  He has another way of approaching and navigating these challenges right before us.  He always does.

Praying is a lot about making choices.  Not my will, but Yours.  And that way of praying changes not just our hearts, but the trajectory of our lives.  Make me know Your ways, O LORD, teach me Your paths. Psalm 25. 4  As in any of our own pursuits, what if we prayed differently about it? What if we prayed at all?

Not my schemes, but Your incredible plans.

Not what's on my radar, but Your incomprehensible imagination.

Not my control, but Your steadfast hand.

Not my feelings, but Your Presence.

Not my performance, but Your grace.

Not my patching together, but Your redeeming.

Not my fictions, but Your truth.

Not my adding, but Your multiplying.

Not my prescription for how it should be written, but Your grand narrative.

Not my fears of "what if...", but Your faithfulness of "what is."

Not my obsession with "what's next," but Your strength in "what's now."

Not my myopic vision, but Your eternal perspective.

Not my comfort, but Your Kingdom.

Not my glory, but Yours.

Not me, but You.