Cookies

The other day I baked cookies. I followed the directions to the letter and made sure all my measurements were correct, but when it came time to spoon the batter out, it didn't look right at all. I double checked that I had done everything right, but I couldn't figure out what had gone wrong. My friend who was in the kitchen with me jokingly (I assume) told me that what was missing was love. He was right.

Although I was following the recipe perfectly, I was baking begrudgingly. I had just come back from two hours of running errands which only would've taken me 10 minutes had the places I needed to go been closer to campus. Because of my prolonged errand run - for things that weren't for me and I deemed unnecessary - I was going to be late to the dinner I was making the cookies for. So when I was told my cookies were missing love, I had to laugh because it was true.

That simple joke got me thinking when I later recounted the story. How many things in life do we do without love - without emotion? We go through the motions of life and then are surprised to find out the result is not as it should be. Like when we do our homework in a rush just to get it over with and then find out after it's graded that we've made tons of stupid mistakes.

Or more seriously, our relationships with God. I think we've all been there before, just going through the motions and thinking we're alright. Because we can't see the future, we don't realize we're doing something wrong until we see the end result, or we are somehow made aware of the error of our ways. Thank God for those moments of realization, as hard as they are to accept.

I find too often in my own life I am consumed by the busyness of the world and put a lot of things on the back shelf. I become busy with school work and put my friendships at the back of my mind; I become busy with keeping up with my friends and forget about my work and other duties. And in all of this busyness, I lose sight of God. I go to church and bible studies, and weekly fellowships, but I allow my growth to be stunted except for those hours during the week. I do it all right but I don't invest the time or passion into continuing to grow as God wants me to. I think I can get by with just the basics, but I am always mistaken. It's then when I become worried with various little instances and allow myself to second doubt the obvious. It is then when my moody tendencies get the best of me. It's when my focus is a little blurry and my life is viewed as another task to finish that I am furthest from what growth potential God has put ahead of me.

So here is to living our lives with a sense of purpose and an all consuming passion given to us by the One everything goes back to. The challenge we receive every day is how we will choose to live. Will we try to get by with just the bare minimum, hardly even scratching the surface, wallowing in self-pity and feeble excuse? Or are we going to go in head first, ready to take on whatever comes our way because we are empowered by a purposeful, passionate and loving Father? That much is up to us.

Now I don't want to leave any of you unsatisfied as you finish reading this post. I would hate for you to go away from this worrying about the state of my loveless cookies! Turns out I hadn't done anything wrong and all my cookies needed were some more turns of the spatula and getting my hands dirty (I washed them first.) as I hand rolled the batter.

Take this encouragement: If the loveless cookies turned out to be a hit, there's hope for our passionless lives. ;)