Quick Cake
In my
lifetime I have known a few women who began the process of making a cake by
turning on the stand mixer, that imposing piece of equipment most of us have
banished from our counter tops. They would
dump in the softened butter, and when its color changed, begin slowly adding
the sugar. The product that emerged from
the ovens of these women bore only a slight resemblance to the Crocker, Hines,
Pillsbury cakes we are all accustomed to eating. The lengthy process of the former, properly
executed, produces the cake the other is trying to imitate. But that flavor, character,
texture, personality, fragrance and balance cannot be the result of a quick
process.
The cake-from-a
box and soup-from-a-can approach typifies many aspects of our lives. We don’t know much about process and have
little respect for it. Quicker is
Better. Our spiritual and emotional
development often suffers from this kind of need for speed.
Knowing God
and understanding ourselves in a way that allows us to mature into believers
with depth and resilience, compassion, patience, and self-control takes time,
study, and meditation, a listening ear and a willing heart. We need careful preparation and evaluation,
and self-examination. Knowing the word
and pressing it down into the empty or broken places of our hearts takes time
and contemplation. Knowledge does not become wisdom without the passage of time
and the heat and pressures of a life lived. That flavor, character, texture, personality,
fragrance and balance cannot be the result of a quick process. This should be
what we pursue so that we can serve it to our children. If they never taste it they will not know the
difference.
