Recipes

I was having a conversation back stage last week about cooking. I am not a cook. I don't care what my husband says, I have no ability and frankly no desire to be a cook. If I have to use a measuring spoon, I'm done for. I can put contents of a bag in a pan and add two cups of water or a stick of butter, but beyond that and my mental capacity overloads. For example, we have a Whirly-Pop, which is probably the best way to make popcorn ever. You just have to add the kernels and some oil and stick it on stove. This is something I have done probably on average once a week since October when we got the Whirly-Pop. However, every single time I make the popcorn I have to ask what the measurements are on the kernels and oil. These things just do not stick in my head. And apparently I'm not alone. While discussing cooking with SBTB and BH, I found that they too have problems with recipes. One comment was that anything with more than four ingredients was to much. Well today I got it in my head to look up some Irish recipes for the upcoming holiday. And quickly realized that the four ingredients rule is a good one to stick with. Have you ever looked at how many ingredients are in Shepherd's Pie! Good grief. But this got me to thinking about other "recipes" in our lives and how if it gets too complicated we tend to avoid it or walk away. And yet we as Christians tend to be the worst at coming up with long recipes with a gazillion recipes. There is one ingredient to life. And yet we tend to add to it. The recipe for salvation is, simply believing that Christ died for us. But we add ingredients like going to church, tithing, deciding between a-millennialism and premillennialism, teaching Sunday School, devotions, listening to Christian radio. All of these ingredients may be important but they are not the recipe to salvation. They are ingredients to growing as a follower of Christ. But we have to realize that when people are not followers of Christ, we can't overload them with ingredients. Let them make cereal or Kraft Mac'N'Cheese. Don't give them a recipe with ingredients that cause them to say it's to much and move on to the next recipe. One simple ingredient for the most important recipe ever. Christ died for our sins and all we have to do is accept that. As we grow as Christians we can work on the other recipes with more ingredients. Just like we can cook fancier foods as we get more comfortable in the kitchen.