A Dab Of This And That

On May 9, 2009, Lauretta Balderston described her mother's bread-making techniques. In her devotional, Just A Pinch, she wrote:

God takes our efforts, even when all we have is a pinch of faith, and uses them for His glory, in His time — and it always "just works out" as He wants. "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed … nothing will be impossible for you."

Her devotional reminded me of my grandmother's biscuits.

Bags and bowls cluttered every square inch of my grandmother's porcelain-topped table. A fifty-pound flour sack occupied a chair. Nestled into it, the handle of a depression-era pottery cup defiantly poked out its neck. A serving spoon was plunged up to its handle in a heaping bowl of freshly churned butter. Beside it, a quart jug of buttermilk stood to attention.

Grandma picked up the pottery cup, heaped it full of flour, then emptied it several times into an enormous ceramic bowl in the centre of the table. Next, she added various ingredients: a teaspoonful of baking soda, two of baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Vigorously, she stirred them into the mix. Then came a couple of generous dabs of butter, worked into the flour until it formed little balls. A cup of buttermilk came next. All these she mixed with her hands. Carefully, she formed the dough into a ball, picked it up, then plopped it onto a well-floured board. This she rolled out and cut into biscuits with a clean soup can. Next, each biscuit was tenderly placed upon a well-greased baking sheet to bake in her hot oven.

Before long, Grandma was pulling light, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth biscuits from her oven. The heavenly finished product never failed, nor was there ever a written recipe. Always, grandma used a pinch of this and a dab of that to achieve the desired end.

Matthew 13:33 – He told them still another parable, "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." (NIV)

If you will allow the analogy, like a good baker, God uses the raw ingredients of our lives to form us into someone heavenly — not all at once, mind you, but bit by bit, adding a dab of this and a pinch of that to achieve the finished product. We need never despair, because we know He will make us fit for heaven — through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, in Your efforts to make someone "heavenly" from us, our experiences sometimes feel like we are being "vigorously worked over", like biscuit dough. Yet we know that You've promised that everything You send our way will work for our ultimate good. Enable us, O Lord, to praise You when life seems like something other than heaven. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

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