I remember one day in 1970, when I was just 4 years old (Oops❗️🙊 Accidentally outed my age on the internet again), I was helping Mom make a Chocolate cake. We had already greased and floured the pans, the oven was set and preheating, the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder) gathered on the counter, when suddenly the phone rang.
It was back in the "Olden days" when phones were tethered to the wall with a cord, and ours was just in the hallway between the kitchen and living room.
Mom turned to me and said,
"Could you help me and get the butter and 2 eggs out of the fridge, while I answer the phone, but make sure not to go near the hot oven."
"Okay, Mom." ☺️
Simple, right?
Should have been no problem
However, Mom was talking on the phone longer than anticipated and even after I had taken out the butter and eggs she was STILL on the phone.
So, ... 💁♀️ I decided to be helpful and keep on going. But, at that age, the idea of specific measurements were yet unknown to me. It seemed to me that Mom (and my Grandmothers) just put a bit of THIS and a bit of THAT into the bowl.
Which is exactly what I did. 💁♀️
When Mom got off the phone, I was stirring all the dry ingredients together and the flour had *POOFED* everywhere making a wee bit of a mess. 🤏
(Okay, okay! I had made a BIG mess.)
When Mom came back into the kitchen she looked around and asked (puzzled but not angrily),
"Laura-Lee, what are you doing?"
Sensing I had done wrong, I responded sheepishly,
"Well, I finished getting the eggs and milk, just like you asked, but when you were taking a long time on the phone, I decided to be helpful and keep on going without you until you came back."
She looked into the bowl and said,
"But I have to put only a certain amount of each ingredient in the bowl and do it in a very specific order. By doing this all by yourself, when you didn't know what to do, you've actually ruined the whole cake and wasted all these ingredients. Now I have to start all over again.
You could hear me and knew I was coming right back, so you should have just done what I asked you and then waited for me to tell you what to do next."
🍃🌹🍃🌹🍃
How many times has Jesus given us just a simple, yet important, task to do, but we get tired and frustrated waiting for Him to tell us what to do next or to comeback?
So we jump ahead of Him, take the initiative and start creating and building on our own.
That is a recipe for disaster!
What we need to do is be "faithful in the little things",
"wait patiently on the LORD" (Psalm 27)
and DO JUST WHAT HE asks us to do . No more, no less. 🙅♀️
"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much."
(Luke 16:10)
"The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him".
(Lamentations 3:25)
"But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’"
(Jeremiah 7:23)
The Truth with Love,
Always Laura-Lee
