cookies & milk

i could not stop craving oatmeal chocolate chip cookies last night. so i went and bought the ingredients and Annie & I made the cookies. remember the last time you made cookies? if you are a dad reading this and haven't made cookies with your daughter, you need to try this.

there are some great life lessons in cookie making if you indulge me for a moment:

(1) you need all the ingredients - this is vital. without all the right "stuff," the cookies won't taste right. we barely had enough brown sugar for the recipe. i asked my lovely wife if we could substitute regular sugar for brown sugar. apparently that is a no-no. you must use the proper amount of every ingredient.

that reminds me of the fruit of the Spirit . . . love, joy, peace, patience, etc. if you only have one or two of these clicking in your life and the others are foreign concepts, you won't turn out like God wants. He desires you to have all of them so you will will taste good to the world.

(2) it's so hard to resist eating the dough! - this may be the best part of the cookie making process, but it is not the finished product.

how often do we settle for the "un"finished product? we embrace a portion of Christ's identity, but not all of it. we receive a % of the Father's love, but not 100%. we allow the Holy Spirit to fill us once in awhile. yes, the cookie dough tastes good, but the finished product of a hot baked cookie is not only great, it's better for you because it's been cooked!

(3) cookies don't cook alone - it would seem odd if you walked into someone's house and they were baking cookies and they only put one cookie on a baking sheet at a time. or, what if they just made one giant cookie that took up the whole pan?

we are not in this game of life by ourselves. to borrow a line from a junior high girl's favorite movie, "We're all in this together!" there are no lone rangers. life is not an individual sport. we must allow others to be near us and to influence our lives. and we shouldn't try to be the biggest cookie on the sheet either. God is pleased with our humility. leadership is about serving others, not trying to beat out the next guy!

(4) every cookie turns out unique - you cannot make each cookie look exactly the same. the cookies will have different amounts of chocolate chips, oatmeal, and other ingredients inside.

we are all different and need to celebrate those differences. Our Father is a Masterpiece Artist. He carefully knit each of us together in our mother's womb. he designed us perfectly the way we are. we must be careful not to compare ourselves and allow discouragement our bitterness to creep into our hearts. there will always be someone who is better at something than we are. let's keep our focus on God, not on others.

(5) clean up is essential - after your masterpiece cookies are complete, the work is not done. you must clean up the mess you make. it will not clean up itself.

this reminds me of the messes in life we make. no one is exempt from messes. when we have a situation that gets ugly or needs some extra attention, we need to address it and get it cleaned up. it could be sin. it could be some argument with a friend or relative. it could be a poor attitude. i remember as a server at Applebees when i was in college, the manager had a policy for each of us, "clean as you go!" if you make a mess, get it cleaned up ASAP. don't let it set or expect someone else to clean it up for you. this is a great life lesson . . . clean up your messes and do it now!

You are probably wondering by this point how the cookies turned out. well, let's just say, we made 33 cookies las night and there are only 20 left!

thanks for checking in to my blog! feel free to leave a comment! see you soon!

peace