A Cake That Taught a Lesson

Everyday we have opportunities to choose what thoughts we are going to yield ourselves to. Every moment of those days we have opportunity to listen for, recognize and yield to God’s thoughts.

September 25, I read Proverbs 25:26 and cannot count the number of days of 25’s I have read this proverb. Today is different. Today my heart receives truth. Today, though unsuspecting at the time of reading and writing I am going to have opportunity to practise the truth I learn.

We become like a muddied fountain and polluted spring when we yield; we fall and then compromise our integrity.

This morning I question, “Yield to what?” The answer comes clear. When we yield to impatience, anger, frustration, faithlessness, speaking lack, dislike of others, unhappiness, discontent, and fretting, wanting to get even…

The list makes me sit up straighter and take notice! How many minutes of our days are we faced with decisions to choose what is right and pleasing to God?  How many times do we yield to the thoughts the enemy tries to sow? How quickly do we recognize where these thoughts come from and just as quickly discard them?

I thought of Mary. Mary, sitting at the feet of her beloved Savior, savoring each sentence, noting each nuance of His words.

Mary sat, wrapped in the peace of His presence.  All else faded away. She knew her choices when Jesus came to their home. She knew her responsibilities.

Maybe she chose that day to sit with Jesus not because her heart was tenderer, more spiritual or she instinctively knew to choose the better part.

Maybe Mary felt inferior, insecure, saw her inabilities to serve as graciously and effortlessly as her older sister and countless other women in her district.

Maybe she didn’t like the way her insecurities made her feel. Maybe she felt she didn’t measure up to the standards other women lived by. Maybe she felt unable to walk with the same dignity, grace and beauty she saw in other women.

Her older sister Martha was capable and well able to run her household efficiently, a woman exuding grace and beauty, skilled and so able. Martha was together. She probably never had a bad hair day. Her attire was likely creative and a cut above. Her food preparation and presentation left her guests feeling wowed and special.

Maybe Mary felt insecure in her shadow.  I know I have felt like this many times as I have marveled at the magnificence of other women.

Maybe Mary felt the only way she could cope with her emotions was to sit at the feet of Jesus first.

How easily and quickly we forget how fearfully and wonderfully God has made us!

Have you forgotten? Are you lining yourself up alongside other women, noting comparisons, feeling inferior and insecure alongside them?

What are we doing when we put ourselves through this form of torture? We are yielding to the power of the negative thoughts and we fall. The fire within us fades in the face of outward appearances.

Whoever we are, wherever we are, we need to fill up with the meat and drink of God’s word, meditate on God’s thoughts towards us and yield to His truth.

What you just read was as far as I got yesterday morning before I looked at the time, jumped up and into the shower. You see, I had a baked a cake and had promised to deliver it to my husband’s office.  No time had been set for that…I thought. Before the shower, I turned on the computer to check emails after the shower.

Amongst many, one stood out – “CAKE. Please have cake here by 10:00 am. Thanks.”  Sent over an hour earlier, I now had twenty minutes to dress, dry and drive fifteen minutes to make it! Mentally calculating time and distance, I throw on my jeans, tee, and long linen sweater; quickly apply mascara and lip-gloss.  In my haste, my hair tangles in my brush. With hair finally brushed smooth and pulled back into a very wet ponytail, I fly out of the house, determined to drive the speed limit.

Once on the way, I laugh for I realize I am living what I am learning!

I am not going to yield to the thoughts and feelings of insecurities the enemy was throwing at me. In spite of my hasty dressing and wet hair, I looked good and told myself so! I laughed at the irony of it all!

Then the sneaky thought came I almost yielded to. “I could just leave the cake at security and they could call Bruce…”  I arrived and there was Bruce waiting for me outside, beaming when he saw me. I handed him the cake and he said, “Park over there ok.  There are some people I’d like you to meet.”

All I could think was “I sat at the feet of Jesus this morning!” I felt empowered, I felt the company of Jesus.

It’s not about us, but Who lives inside us. It’s about letting His love and glory shine through our brokenness, our weaknesses. Even when delivering cake!

In Him, we are beautiful, gracious, strong, capable, intelligent, wise. That’s who they saw yesterday.

That is you, oh precious child of God, your life is hidden in Him and He is radiant and glorious through your life as you lean and yield to His strength.

Can you be fluid like the water of the Word, and flow with grace and beauty as you yield to the flowing of His Spirit within you?