There are always so many ideas. So many ideas about how we should live and what we should say and what Christianity looks like. Idea after idea pour out from the lips of pastors and authors and respected people in the church community. Do this, read that. Serve here, help there. Over and over, message after message, strewn across the Internet like fortune cookie slips. And we get angry or sad or confused, depending on what we read. There is too much to do! We will never be able to do it all. And have we failed? Or, are we failing in reading everything that crosses our online path, failing to go to the place where undiluted and undoctored truth is found. Everything we read from a modern, human hand is tinted with opinion, laced with interpretation, intent on making a point. So at what point do I put down the phone, step away from the computer, and go first to the Word. Digging in and digging deep to find what really matters for eternity. Are my priorities getting confused in the chaos of information hitting me at kbps?
I am home, with my kids, waiting for the sweet smell of scalded milk, watching the yeast bubble and rise, measuring the flour; serving my family. I am refereeing kids and tucking in for naps. I am planning supper and washing dishes. I am momming it hard. And this is where I should be, this is my first mission field, my most important mission field. I can use this field to serve and love and give, but this is where I belong, where my time belongs. And outside of this I have my church. And outside of my church, I have my community. And beyond my community is the world. And so this is where I start. Elbows deep, kneading dough. Loving on my family. Yes, I can do “for the least of these ” but the least are the littles in my home, rich in stuff but empty of Christ, watching me witness in the way I serve at home. Just as in recipes, everything in life has a place and time, and time to be mixed and stirred. And the only time I am surprised by the results is when I have tried to skip steps, when I have mixed up the order. Yes, it is good to be aware of the world around me, to find ways to help, but if helping outside keeps me from helping inside my home, have I really done it right?
Using bad yeast in bread keeps it from rising. Yeast has an expiry date. Everything has an expiry date. The thing we sometimes forget has an expiry date is our world. It always seems so busy and full of newness, but it was failing from the first bite of forbidden fruit. And it has been failing ever since. So I am not surprised by the hurting and sadness and pervasive evil. I am not surprised by the unexpected that tears away at the seams of comfortable living. I am surprised by the number of people who didn’t see it coming. People who think we can change the course of something that has been planned since the foundations were laid. We are waiting. Waiting and following the map given, running the race to the prize, living testimonies of faith. Living in the Truth. And my testimony starts in the walls of my home. Inside. What I do inside is always seen outside. Not the other way around. So before I jump on a popular Christian bandwagon, I am going to live for the lost inside my home and study the truth at my fingertips. Serving outside as I am lead by the Word, not by man. Because priorities. Because love. Because my job is Mom and that starts with my kids. Then my church, then my community, then the world. And I know I can trust my God to fill the gaps and spaces and needs that I can’t.
faith from the stove 