Are you a good recipe follower? I'm not. I usually pour in a little of this and shake a lot of that. I very rarely get out the measuring spoons and cook something to its exact specifications. However, I have found through the years that, when it comes to baking, you might want to be a bit more diligent with directions. Baked goods are very fussy and want to be handled more specifically than other foods, and ingredients aren't as readily substituted.
When I was in high school, I was on my church's drama team. We had a skit where a Bible salesman came to the door of a home and rang the bell. When he was allowed in, the people who lived there weren't sure that they wanted a Bible because there were a few things in it that they didn't like so much. The salesman said that he could take out things that weren't agreeable, and he ripped out the offending page. At the next house, it was more of the same. He ripped out a few more pages. At the third house, they liked the Bible, but wanted to add things that they felt were missing, so the salesman was able to write in the additions. And by the time the salesman was done, he had pretty much taken out all of the original pages and re-written the Bible altogether.
The lights went down on the stage, and the anouncer read from Revelations 22 - a warning against either adding or taking from the words written therein. It seemed like a pretty simple skit, but it had a heavy impact. The things that the customers were wanting were things like this: "I don't really like my neighbors. They allow their garbage to spill all over the side of their house, and I can see it. I don't really like that part about 'loving my neighbor as myself'. Can we take that out?" or "I don't really want to tell my boss about all the tips that I earned today, so I want to have something written in there about it being OK to tell 'white lies'." The things that were being changed weren't necessarily the foundations of our faith, but they were subtle changes that could change the flavor of the Word nonetheless.
The truth is that the Word of God is Holy Spirit inspired. It's not our place to add to it or to take from it. We need to be very careful so that our lives will reflect the truth of the Bible, keeping standards that line up with the will of God for our lives instead of letting things slide here and there. God's plan for our lives is not a legalistic plan, but it is for us to live excellent lives that honor Him, not changing the "recipe" according to our own desires.
When it comes to my cooking, you may never taste the same thing twice at my house. I may not even be able to replicate a dish because I'm not really sure what I put in it in the first place! But when it comes to my walk with the Lord, I hope that what you see in me is consistent and holy. I don't ever want to say one thing and live another. I hope to keep the outcome favorable to the recipe!
Favorite cookbook today: I love Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa's Back to Basics. What's your favorite?
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