The Process of Something Delicious!
Imagine yourself sitting down in a fancy restaurant. You look over the menu and a “chocolate fudge cake” catches your eye. You wait and wait, and the waitress finally walks over after her forty-five minute break from you. She acts as though no one has noticed her absence and calmly says “ok, what do you want tonight?” While you are annoyed at the wait, you tell her that you will have the chocolate fudge cake. Finally, after what seems like three hours of waiting, your cake arrives. You pick up your fork and carve a piece out of the side. You reluctantly stick it in your mouth — after all, the service hasn’t been to your liking so far, so the cake seems a little suspicious now. But oh, how good it tastes! It literally melts in your mouth, making every one of your taste buds tingle!
Here’s the question: was the cake worth it? Was it worth the pain and anxiety of waiting?
There’s a close analogy here with the way God does things. We sit there waiting and growing more and more hungry as time wears on, yet we know that back in the “kitchen” something wonderful is being made. Something delicious is being cooked. Your life’s story is being mixed with God’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self control, and mercy — just to name a few — to create a wonderful concoction, or as we call it, “cake.”
The writer of Psalm 25:21 said, “let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee.” This is what we need to pattern our lives after. We need to be able to wait on our situation. We need to realize that, just like the cook, God knows what He’s doing and it will come out delicious and better for us in the end. What do I mean by better for us in the end? Well, take the cook for example again. Say the cook took a bunch of raw ingredients and threw them into a pan and then cooked them. Would that be healthy for you? It wouldn’t, and that’s exactly my point.
God knows precisely what to put in and exactly how long to wait. It will come out perfect in the end if we let God be God and the cook be cook. They are professionals at what they do, and who are we to tell God what to do or how? The Lord created heaven and earth, and He did a pretty good job! Don’t you think he can take your situation and make it into something “delicious”? Speaking of my own life, I am completely confident that He can and will do exactly that! The promise is in Romans 8:28, “and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” We are the called, and that means all things will work together and will end up excellent at the end! Believe it, see it . . . then consume it!
Have you had long processes in your life that produced excellent results? What would you say to someone who is in the middle of that process and can’t see the end of it yet? Share a few words in the comments.
Food is a good analogy — we may be hungry right now, but good, nourishing food takes time to prepare. God doesn’t do things that are not excellent. (Well, not unless we refuse to let Him help us!) That means that the best thing for us may not be the quickest. It will be expedient, not express.
You made me want to go eat something! Good use of your imagination, and a great application. I have trouble with hungering for things – even things God wants me to hunger for – because the waiting seems so useless. It really does speak to our inability to trust the Creator.