All The Things We Did Not Need

Unlike my husband who shops only from a list, I regularly find impulse items appearing in my grocery cart.  It is not that they won't be consumed, but they were neither planned nor considered needful at the time.

Once long ago, on a hot summer day in Memphis at Aldi's grocery store, the watermelons looked particularly good and so inexpensive that I purchased two.  Even as I was loading my car, I questioned myself, "What were you thinking?" One watermelon is a lot for just two people, but we definitely didn't need an extra one.

After I returned home, I took a meal I had prepared for a family in our church who were caring for a child who was chronically ill.   I pulled into their driveway and walked up to their front porch, carrying the meal. As the mom opened the door, I realized that I had forgotten to unload the watermelons at home with the rest of my groceries.  They were still sitting in the car, like toddlers strapped in their car seats.

I handed my friend an aluminum pan of "piggies in a blanket," ready to stick in the oven at suppertime for her hungry tribe of kids. Her son who was not feeling well was standing by her side with a forlorn look on his face. 

On a whim flying through my thoughts, I said. "Oh, I have something else, if you are interested."  I walked back to the car, the hot humid summer air already covering us like a wet woolen blanket.  Still fresh from the air-conditioned market, the hard green skin of the melon felt cool in my hands.

As I returned, I could see her son's eyes light up. "How did she know?" he asked his mom with the sheer glee of a four year old.  For a brief moment, my friend could not speak.

"Our son has not been eating much, just not feeling well, due to his medications.  Earlier this morning, he had told me that what he wanted more than anything today was a watermelon.  I told him that I was sorry that I didn't have any, or the way to get one today."

"And then, here you come with exactly what we needed. How did you know?"

God equips each of us with abilities, resources we didn't know we have, gifts that seem unnecessary or superfluous at the time, and sometimes the muscle memory to heft a heavy load someone is carrying.  God even embeds tiny hidden details that sneak into our thoughts to sway our decisions, directions, and prayers.  God provides what we need.  But sometimes He provides all the things we think we do not need.  Because someone else might need them. Am I paying attention?  On that particular day, what I thought I didn't need was exactly as God intended.

And it's never just about a watermelon.

I was totally unaware of what God was doing. I did not comprehend at the time how buying two melons would bless the life of a little boy.  I did not audibly hear God saying, "Buy two!" But He covers all of us with His faithfulness and grace. God is good, even when we don't understand and even when life is hard. 

Praise God for how He intervenes in our lives.  He whispers, "Trust Me in this."  May He forgive us for us seeing our mistakes as an interruption.  God does not guide in mysterious ways. God redeems according to His intricate designs.  His redeeming stretches over past, present and future tense. Why are we so surprised?

Are we listening? Are we following Him into this day? We cannot help but be changed by it.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,

that we may receive mercy 

and find grace to help in time of need.

                      Hebrews 4. 16

 

A Little More Love And A Larger Bowl

This is what I started with: a relatively small bowl of anemic looking noodles. And we had twelve people coming over for supper in a matter of hours.

 

 

 

A dilemma, perhaps, but I pulled out my secret weapon:  a recipe for pasta salad casually shared with me after a church potluck supper forty years ago. The recipe, now almost indecipherable from age, has fed more people at our table than can be counted, including family get-togethers, out-of-town company, and home groups in every town where we've lived. 

The recipe does not call for special or exotic ingredients, but what waits patiently in the pantry and remains largely forgotten in the bottom refrigerator drawer.  We are all surrounded by small things, proximate and seemingly needless, yet never insignificant.

We tend to see the ordinary and familiar as dull and mundane. But what emerges are the elements of the sensational, simply because it is so unexpected.   

My grandmother, having lived through the first pandemic, two world wars, the Great Depression, widowhood, raising my mom single-handedly, and living on a shoe string most of her life, would look at a difficulty and say, "Now what can we do with that?"  Not a problem in her twinkling eyes, but an opportunity to get creative.  On so many levels, she could take a proverbial empty cupboard and turn it into a feast. Because she knew the little things count.

How can I see this situation differently?  also happens to be very biblical.

Facing a hungry mob on a hillside, the twelve disciples lacked any imagination at all.  ...for we are here in a desolate place. Luke 9. 12

Jesus didn't say, "Good luck with that problem. Try to think of something."  But He said, "What DO you have?"  He may have even chuckled a little under His breath. Now watch this!

And taking the five loaves and two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them...And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.  Luke 8. 16-17

What appeared as a desperate situation, God covered with His fundamental law of leftovers.  He provided not just enough, but more than enough.  And not by coincidence, supplied a gift BASKET of leftovers, for each one of those twelve doubting disciples.

What can we do with our own predicaments? Despise not the day of small things. Zechariah 4. 10   

God uses what we have and turns it into a feast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How can we change things up?  Add a little kindness to the conversation.  Pour in an overflowing cup of grace.  Visit, call, encourage and pray. Seize the opportunity to help someone.  Mix in the sweet and the savory.  Make use of a few orphaned vegetables at the bottom of the package. Finish off a partial bag of pepperoni's.  And oh, there's some feta way back on the fridge shelf.

God blesses.  God redeems. God multiplies.

And for those twelve hungry people who came to our table last week, we didn't just have enough.  We had more than enough.  Because that is how God's faithfulness works. What can I add to this situation?  A little more love.  And a larger bowl.

And one friend even went home with a container of leftovers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because The Little Things Count Pasta Salad

Dressing

2/3 cup oil

1/3 cup white vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1 clove of garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Mix all dressing items together and pour over the following ingredients:

Salad Mix  --(ingredients and amounts subject to what you have)

1 small package crumbled feta cheese -- or other cheese cut into small cubes

1 box rainbow spiral noodles, cooked and then chilled

1 cup raw broccoli florets

1 cup raw cauliflower, cut in bite-size pieces

1/2 cup raw carrots, sliced into coins

1 can pitted black olives

1 cup chopped celery

1 bell pepper chopped (any color)

1 small cucumber chopped

1 cup grape tomatoes (or 1 medium tomato chopped)

1 jar artichoke hearts cut up

Marinate the dressing and salad mix for 4 hours in the refrigerator

Optional protein:  Add grilled and sliced boneless chicken breasts

 

 

Too Young To Remember

Even at the time, I always wondered what the children would remember of those early years of Covid.  They didn’t understand at the time what was going on, but neither did we.  We faced days of unknown, not knowing what to do, how to do it, what would happen next, or even what would unfold in the next hour.

The children were all at home, not understanding why everyone wore masks, nor why they couldn’t go to school or anywhere else. The big kids did elementary home school out of workbooks and read every book in sight.

Two of our grandchildren were twins, only three years old.  We would stop by and wave through the window.  They didn’t understand why we didn’t come in anymore. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What would the children remember from these times?  What would we?

My days were filled with stitching surgical caps and masks from scraps of fabric left over from a thousand previous projects, not enough material to make much of anything, until now. Our physician daughter shipped these to nurses and doctors all over the States. Every couple days, I would deliver to my daughter’s doorstep, more surgical caps from whimsical printed fabric, a loaf or two of bread, cinnamon rolls, and usually, a couple dozen cookies, often delivered in foil-lined shoe boxes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We bought flour in those days in fifty-pound bags from Costco, purchased during the early hours, when they allowed masked “older people,” to enter the store.  I could not lift the bags, but they occupied a corner of our pantry, from which I scooped out flour, almost every day.  In the course of a little more than a year, I went through five 50-pound bags of bread flour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baking and sewing protective gear for nurses and doctors provided me not just something to do, but something I could do, making good things in response to the evening news when daily statistics would be announced. Faceless numbers scrolled in the news like a daily score. But sometimes a name or face would be announced when someone was famous. Even they were vulnerable.

Sometimes we received a sudden text or call about a family member or friend whom we didn’t even know was sick or that sick. We prayed a lot in those days. Some squeaked through. Others passed silently, alone in hospital rooms or at home. Everyone was touched by it, days upon months. And God held us gently in His faithfulness. Even then.

We lived in the cross-section of lack and abundance. We stopped keeping track of each column. 

In early March, very soon into the lockdown, my elderly mother-in-law, confined and quarantined in her facility, called one morning, panicked after watching the news. “They said this might last until June!” How little we realized.

There was hopeful talk of returning to normal.  But we didn’t know when that would happen, nor what "normal" or even a new normal would look like.  Surely we would make it through this. But all of us would be changed by it. Would the older children reminisce, “Remember when we went to school every day?” 

The day before yesterday, one of those three-year-old twin grandsons – now eight years old-- thought out loud while we were riding in the car. Out of the blue, he recollected, “I loved the cinnamon bread you used to bring for us.  It was so good.”

That is what he remembers from the Covid lockdown, the powerful fragrance of cinnamon and brown sugar swirled in a still warm loaf, left by their side door. I thought those days were just a blur in his little toddler brain, like a photograph out of focus. But love never is, even when we cannot pinpoint the aroma.  What creates those memories? What triggers them?

Yesterday morning, I made him a loaf.  It was on his kitchen table when he got off the bus from school, to keep that strong reality of being loved still warm.

Not too young to remember. 

...in the days of famine 

they have abundance.  

               Psalm 37. 19

The Annual Burning of the Rolls

 

Today I am reheating a posting from 2015.  The turkey is not the main course, nor the burnt rolls what we remember, but grace and thankfulness to God Almighty.  May our time together reflect that.  Happy Thanksgiving!

None of us can remember the first time it happened, but along with my mom's green beans that had been cooked to death, the annual burning of the rolls became a Thanksgiving tradition when I was growing up.

"This year," mom would promise and proclaim, "this year, it won't happen."  But it did.  The store-bought dinner rolls were slipped into the oven in their little aluminum trays, and well, there was always some kind of distraction.  The blessing went on a little too long, there was jockeying for position at the table, someone's water glass tipped over, or the rolls were simply forgotten.

And then, with exact timing 3-2-1, we all heard Mom's shriek from the kitchen as she discovered the charred rolls.  More than once, the smoke detector alerted us to the obvious.  The back door was opened to let out the smoke into the bitter Chicago air.  And the bread, now appearing as lumps of charcoal, once again was deleted from the menu, ending up still smoking in the trash.

Mom would look surprised for a moment as if "how did that happen?" and then, she would laugh.  And we would chuckle with her, grace not covering up her mistakes, but redeeming them.

Realizing that Thanksgiving comes suddenly upon us next week, a family email was circulated among our daughters yesterday, soliciting Thanksgiving menu requests.  Let the creativity commence.  And may the cornbread dressing retain its rightful place of honor..

My husband's request for the meal?  "I am just glad to be together," a rare and precious time now that our family are scattered across two time zones.

It's not about the perfect table, or perfect food, or a perfect family, but thankfulness to God for what we do have, for what He has done this year, and for Who He is.

Many friends have shared with me their anxieties about the holidays, and it doesn't have anything to do with the menu, but bitter grapes, long-seasoned animosity, and overcooked bad attitudes, things that don't belong. Breaking those traditions means taking the high road there and bringing a huge plate of grace to the table.

Saying grace refers to a short prayer or an expression of thankfulness to God, traditionally said before a meal.  It is not meant to be a recitation, but a realization of God's favor.

Bringing grace is a state of being that results in an intentional mindset and heart prepared to express a love that is not earned.  Grace releases us from expecting perfection in others, and fills in the cracks with an impossible love.  The most important person in the room is not you, but the one that needs your love the most.

Who is saying grace this year?
More importantly,
               am I bringing grace?

 Grace covers it all, even when provoked.  Grace changes it all, especially me.

A commercial last night showed a family joyously arriving for Thanksgiving dinner.  "It's going to be perfect," the narrator said. 

Think instead:  "No, it's going to be grace."

Because that is what God has given us.

And from His fullness
we have all received,
                  grace upon grace.

                                 John 1 16

If I want things to be different,
        something has to change.
And that would be me.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true,
whatever is honorable,
whatever is just,
whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely,
whatever is gracious,
if there is any excellence,
if there is anything worthy of praise,
        think about these things.
What you have learned
and received and heard
and seen in me,
                        do,
and the God of peace will be with you.

                             Philippians 4. 8-9

Practice grace in this.

May we not just say grace as a formality,
    but bring grace as a personal gift.
It is not that it will be the perfect holiday,
   impossible with imperfect humans all in one room,
                     but that is what grace is all about.
Do not forget why we come together:
           not to be thankful,
           but to thank God.
He is the honored guest.

What Is Not Like The Others? -- Inktober 4 #exotic

When we were first married a thousand years ago, I would pack a brown bag for my husband Bill to take for lunch at the manufacturing plant where he worked.  A couple sandwiches on store-bought bread, a piece of fruit, a cookie or two, if we had any.  Nothing special but a lunchbreak in the middle of the day.....until I started slipping in a hand-written poem, a Bible verse on a scrap of paper, or a piece of chocolate wrapped in aluminum foil at the bottom of the bag.  He never knew what to expect.  Once he was really surprised when I wrapped in foil, a tiny plastic gorilla we had found under our hot-water radiator.

According to my late father's dictionary published in 1931, I was bringing something exotic to Bill's meal, which the dictionary defined as "anything not native to a place."  It is those additional five letters of anything that turns the ordinary into the extra-ordinary.

What if our habits included a bit of spontaneity, something fun, out of the ordinary, a small kindness, or a smear of Nutella, perhaps, on a plain vanilla wafer?

It doesn't take much to adorn the unadorned.  Or to unfold the beauty God has woven in what is all around us, uncovering the exotic in unusual places and unexpected ways -- both inside and outside our normal bounds.

As our beloved Mr. Rogers used to sing, "What is not like the others?"  This is the day that the LORD has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118. 24   None like any other.  

When we see God differently, everything changes. May we see something exotic in this stretch of hours, plant something different in it, and get our hearts up and running to think and respond with a fresh perspective. 

God specializes in surprising us.  And He uses us to do exactly that for others, more often than not.

Author and house specialist Joanna Gaines practices and pursues what brings unusual treatments to homes and recipes, as simple as adding a can of green chilies to a casserole or swapping out throw pillows on the tired couch.  In her Magnolia Home cookbook, she describes one of her go-to's for an exotic touch:  homemade whipped cream.  Four simple ingredients in four minutes flat transforms the ordinary into something glamorous, the stale or store bought into a last minute special treat. She keeps whipping cream in her fridge as a tool in her toolbox for such a moment as this.  "It makes everything it touches better."

Thinking exotically makes us more aware of the creative mandate God has endowed us.  What am I doing with this little patch of time today?  Mundane does not appear in His dictionary.  But doing all things with a new heart does.

 

 

 

Starting with a Squiggly Line

When our growing family took road trips -- back in the olden days before movies, devices, phones, and other convenient distractions-- shoe-horned into our car, our four girls used to play a little game.  I would draw a dot or angle or squiggly line on a small pad of paper, identical for each of them, despite their range of ages.  They would each draw something starting from that initial doodle.  It was amazing how they all saw it differently.  One would sketch a house, another an English garden, a circus tent with an elephant, a baseball game.  And then they would beg to play it over and over.

Every layer of creativity starts with a squiggly line.

In his monumental The Work of Art:  How Something Comes From Nothing (2024), author Adam Moss starts his book with a squiggly line sketched by architect Frank O. Gehry and how from that he envisioned and designed the extraordinary Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain.

Gehry's initial doodle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What unfolded from that squiggle:  The completed museum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moss interviewed writers, painters, sculptors, artists of all genres, about how they bring about their work from a proverbial squiggly line, a few scribbled words on the back of an envelope, an idea on a subway, the shaping of notes, words and circumstances, the failures and accidents that didn't prove to be mistakes at all.  

The common line through this immense diversity of artists of all kinds is reflected in the title of Moss's book:  the work of art.  Bringing something from nothing requires working at it.

Masterpieces don't just happen.  The people listed in this book are talented, no doubt, but their work didn't just appear fully detailed and shaded in full-color.  They grabbed hold of a tiny little idea and worked with it, many layers over many years.  Took one shape and added something totally irrelevant to it.  Threw away a lot along the way.   Even pulling the discarded out of the wastebasket, dumpster-diving for what was initially overlooked and dismissed.  

They practiced over and over again, worked long hours and sometimes years, until it held together.

Creatives -- and all of us are creatives in one sense or another -- serve the work.  And as Christ-followers, we love serving God and His kingdom through what we do.

What made iconic chef Julia Child so creative was something as simple as, "What if I added cheese to that recipe?" Or oops, a little too much onion.  And it makes me wonder how many of us in this world never bother to pursue that crazy idea of ours.   The missed opportunities, the ignored encounters, and half-sketched thoughts are stuffed in a drawer for later.  The greatest deceit of all is that "what I do doesn't matter anyway." 

Very few writers begin their novels with a full arc already in place, but develop the characters and narrative as it goes along.  In a recent interview, novelist Leif Enger spoke about his recent 2024 book I Cheerfully Refuse.  He started with a simple scene of a house painter eating a cheese sandwich in a warm library.  The story built on itself from there.

Enger paid attention to the squiggly line that appeared seemingly from nowhere. 

The late Alice Munro felt like she was surrounded by squiggly lines -- stories in the making all around her.  "I never have a problem with finding material.  I wait for it to turn up, and it always turns up.  It's dealing with the material I'm inundated with that poses the problem."

What squiggly line has God granted to us today?  What are we doing with it?  We may never realize the masterpiece of goodness that emerges.  But sometimes we do.

A Feast of Books 2023

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

O     Of making many books there is no end...  Ecclesiastes 12. 12 

        And we are glad.

       Looking through the list of books I read in 2023, I was so thankful that I kept a list to remind me of these savory, delicious readings.  Each one was nourishing in its own way.  I found myself grateful for the faithful writers who slaved over manuscripts, putting together words, like so many ingredients in a recipe not yet written down.  

       And on those pages, bound between covers, I was amazed at the real lives that are portrayed, even the imaginary ones.  They inform us about others.  They reveal so much stuff about ourselves.  As I finished reading so many of these books, I couldn't wait to tell someone else, "you have to read this."  This year in books was indeed a feast.

       I also noticed that my books this year were almost equally divided between fiction, memoir, spiritual, and nonfiction.  And how those categories infiltrated one within another, spiritual insights in a novel, extraordinary memoirs both stronger and stranger than fiction, and nonfiction with words for the wise and those who want to be.  I ended the year once again with the last chapter of Revelation.  Reading through the Bible each year changes me.

       But some of the treasure is not just found in my list of books, but in the notes that I take, jotting down pertinent quotes, passages, images, and truths that have been translated into what I can understand.  I have kept those notes in a file on my laptop since 2010.   Some quotes make their way into this nightlytea blog and into my other blog Daily Scriptures for Busy People www.worddujour.blogspot.com. 

       And hopefully into how I live.

H    Here's my list for 2023:

  

           You Are My Sunshine:  a Story of Love, Promises, and a Really Long Bike Ride by Sean Dietrich (2022)

2.      How It Went:  Thirteen More Stories of the Port William Membership by Wendell Berry (2022)

3.      Letters From Westerbork by Etty Hillesum (1982)

4.      Timothy Keller:  His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation by Collin Hansen (2023)

5.      Prayer:  Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster (1992)

6.      The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie (2023)

7.      The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (1950)

8.      Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (2021)

9.      The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo (2003)

10    The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller (2012)

11     Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin (2019)

12   Forgive:  How Can I and Why Should I?  by Timothy Keller (2022)

13   The Meaning of Marriage:  Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God by Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller (2011)

14.   Bird by Bird:  Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamont (1994)

15.   On Getting Out of Bed:  The Burden and Gift of Living by Alan Noble (2023)

16.   Stories of My Life by Katherine Paterson (2022)

17.   How To Human:  Three Ways To Share Life Beyond What Distracts, Divides, and Disconnects Us by Carlos Whittaker (2023)

18.   Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo (2018)

19.   The One and Only Ruby by Katherine Applegate (2023)

20.   In The Garden of The Righteous:  The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Jews During the Holocaust by Richard Hurowitz (2023)

21.   A Praying Life:  Connecting With God in a Distracting World by Paul E. Miller (2009)

22.   Spilling Ink:  A Young Writer’s Handbook by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter (2010)

23.   Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri (2020)

24.   The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri (2023)

25.   Prayers of St. Paul by Rev. W. H. Griffith Thomas (1914)

26.   Elisabeth Elliot:  A Life by Lucy S. R. Austen (2023)

27.   Our Town by Thorton Wilder (1938)

28.   The Third Third of Life:  Preparing for Your Future by Walter C. Wright (2012)

29.   The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)

30.   Run the World by Becky Wade (2016)

31.   The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate DiCamillo (2023)

32.   Prayer 101:  Experiencing the Heart of God by Warren Wiersbe (2006)

33.   The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (2023)

34.   Undone:  A Modern Rendering of John Donne’s Devotions by Philip Yancey (2023)

35.   Mystery and Manners:  Occasional Prose by Flannery O’Connor (1957)

36.   Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland by Scott Shane (2023)

37.   How Far To The Promised Land:  One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South by Esau McCaulley (2023)

38.   The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz (2016)

39.   How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks (2023)

40.   The Bible

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.

  

 

The Secrets of Slow Cooking

The rock-hard frozen chicken thighs made a slight clunk as I dropped them into the slow cooker.  I threw in some spices, two cans of coconut milk, and a sauteed diced onion, and covered it with the lid.  The unlikely mixture did not look at all appetizing at this point. But I gave it a long slow afternoon.

For a time, slow cooking doesn’t look like anything heroic is happening at all.  And then, a gentle boil and perhaps a bit of condensation is visible on the lid.  We leave to do something else, but when we return and walk into the room, the aroma gets all over everything.

Faithfulness believes in the slow cooking of prayer. All too often, we pray pre-packaged microwavable prayers and expect an immediate pre-conceived plastic-wrapped answer in sixty seconds or less.   

But we just need to trust in the slow work of God.

A lot of ingredients have yet to be added.  And the flavors need long slow hours to meld.  God is at work.  Over time we may realize something else is missing, a vital element perhaps.  And many more long-simmering prayers are mingled in the pot, added in sequence when the time is right, and somehow our hearts come to a different understanding.

We don’t comprehend the tenderizing that is happening, the connections being made with unrelated people or situations that appear not to fit.  The deeper things cannot be rushed.  And the result would not be the same if it were hurried along.  The Lord is not slow to fulfill as some count slowness…  2 Peter 3. 9

It is just not the same without the slow cooking of our prayers.

Recently as I was cleaning out a file, I uncovered scraps of papers covered in prayer requests which I had jotted down in a Bible study group from years ago. We had prayed through personal disasters, heart aches, desperate needs, new jobs, new hearts in old jobs, difficult relationships, anxieties, and downright fears. 

I was not impacted by the “results,” but God’s faithfulness to that group, even when we could not yet see His hand.  And all the while, all that time, even now, God has been working.  The waiting is part of God’s gentle simmering. 

How long, O LORD?  (Psalm 13. 1)  His love extends as long as it takes.  We cannot measure the time it takes for a prodigal heart to soften – or maybe our own.  This feast may not be for us – or about us—after all.  But for a thousand generations.

The things we pray may never see the light of day in our lifetime, but that does not diminish the significance that we pray.  We have been entrusted to faithfully come before the Lord.  We may never taste the outcome.  Perhaps for us, to pray is just being embraced by the aroma of the Almighty.  That would be enough.

In slow prayer, the impossibly tough cuts of meat become amazingly tender.  The ordinary vegetables orphaned in the bottom of the fridge become royalty. The flavors join together seamlessly.  Every ingredient adds to the final result.  And when it seems like God is taking His sweet time – well, God has all the time in the world. 

At some point, we just have to trust. 

There are no secrets of slow praying.  Just that we pray.

The prayer of the righteous has great power as it simmers. 

                             James 5. 16