Soup’s On! Or is it?

“He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.'” ~Psalm 46:10

Have you ever had this happen to you: You’ve had a long day at work or school or taking care of the family and then comes dinner time. You’re hungry and so is everyone else, so you quickly throw together some spaghetti and meatballs and no sooner than you turn off the stove everyone’s digging a fork in the pot to scoop out their oversized portion…… including you. Now, dinner’s over, everyone is back to watching t.v. or playing a video game or reading or working and the dishes have been cleared to the dishwasher and the leftovers are neatly stashed in some Tupperware in the fridge. Tomorrow rolls around and you’ve had a long tiring day once again so……. leftovers, it is! You pull out the spaghetti, reheat it and everyone digs in for a second night in a row… but SOMEHOW this meal is better on day two than it was on day one! What in the world!…….. Yeah, well, that’s happened to me too.

Why is this? Well, often food tastes better once the ingredients have had the chance to settle and fully mesh. Our problem is, we want the food as soon as the fire’s off and it looks edible and appetizing.

For myself, what I find is that, this  is not only the case for me when it comes to my food, but this is the case when it comes to many things in life. As soon as a relationship presented itself that looked like it would be good to partake in, I jumped in that river with both feet and no life-preserver, as soon as I heard God speak something into my life I was in a rush to get to THAT even if it meant trying to COMPLETELY BYPASS a vital part of the process, all I wanted was the end result; and what I’d be willing to bet is that I’m not the only one who has Instant Gratificationitis. IG is a serious disease that is hereditary and passed down in MOST families. Some signs and symptoms of IG are: always needing to be in control, the “my way or the highway” mindset, and temper tantrums when we don’t get our way.

In recent weeks I’ve been crying out to God in my prayer life that I was “DESPERATE to hear from Him” but what I realized today is that God’s been speaking, I just didn’t want to hear the message. What I was DESPERATE for was for God to tell me what to do next, what’s the next move I need to make, what’s the next direction I need to move in, where’s the next place that I am going. What God has been telling me though is, “be patient,” “don’t give up,” “TRUST ME and TRUST my plans for you.” None of these responses are what I wanted to hear. I wanted to be called into action because I’m getting restless and I feel like if I’m not seeing the RESULTS I want to see in my life in this season, then it’s because I’m doing something wrong, “so then God, tell me what to do!” and over and over again, God keeps saying, “just be patient, don’t give up, TRUST ME.” What I FINALLY came to realize and ACCEPT today is that I’m not doing anything wrong, but God just has me in the Necessary Rest Period.

The NRP is what you need when you’ve been preparing a meal and you’ve CUT all your ingredients and put all your ingredients in the pot on the FIRE and you’ve STIRRED all the ingredients together over and over and over again and finally all the essences and flavors of each ingredient has been brought out sufficiently. Finally, the nutrients of each individual ingredient has been brought out and now the FIRE can be turned off and the LID can be put on the pot and you can stop STIRRING and  just let the food SIT for a few minutes to let all of the flavors bond together and settle in. Even 5 minutes of RESTING time is better than none at all; but we often do not get to experience the FULLNESS of what this dish was meant to taste like because we rush to eating it as soon as the fire’s off.

It is the SAME when it comes to our lives. Often times we do have to be CUT and we’ve gotta be placed in the FIRE and STIRRED all up until we don’t know which way is up and which way is down. We go through some BOILING: those extremely volatile situations that have been festering for a while and then just explode quickly and violently. Then we go through some SIMMERING phases where we’ve just got to be on that low heat for longer than we want to be and we wish it would just be over. And once the fire is finally turned off and we’re done being stirred for a while we are SO anxious to get out of the pot that we JUMP, DIVE, SUBMERGE ourselves into ANYTHING that LOOKS like it could be good to us; but we completely neglect the fact that the essences of all the good, bad and ugly that we just went through  have not had the chance to fully come together and create the gourmet dish that was intended. And so we jump out of the pot HALF DONE and that is NOT God’s desire. And because we’re half done, when we notice our deficiencies we try to compensate for them with extra salt and pepper. We try to fill ourselves with people and things that are not necessary and are not adding any lasting GOODNESS to our dish. And we will try combinations of people and things and things and people thinking that SOMETHING’s got to fill that space when God is saying that what’s missing is MORE TIME in the pot with Him to allow Him to fully mesh all those good parts and bad parts together perfectly.

For so long, in so many areas of my life I’ve been jumping out of the pot HALF DONE and trying to compensate for what’s missing with salt and pepper and FINALLY I am at a place where I can hear God clearly saying “Yes, the fire is now turned off and I’ve stirred you up enough, and I’m finished cutting; but now I need you to put the lid on and just SIT STILL inside the pot for a while because while you may not be able to see it, on a nuclear level, I am working! I am combining your essence with all of the pain and all of the insecurities and all of the jealousies and all of the discontentments; and if you would just give me the time I’m asking for I can take ALL of those things and combine them with my LOVE and ACCEPTANCE and PEACE and AFFIRMATION and JOY and I will make the best gourmet dish you have ever experienced in your life.”

So, I’m DONE jumping out of the pot. I am determined to submit to the Necessary Rest Period. And even on those days when I’m not feeling sitting still and keeping the lid on I am determined to BE STILL and know that God is working on the nuclear level and creating His masterpiece. I will NOT jump out of the pot, I will BE STILL and wait to be POURED OUT and SERVED when the time is RIGHT! Not MY timing, but HIS!

So, here’s the challenge: For the next meal that you cook, after you’ve chopped all of your ingredients and broken everything that needs to be broken to mix it in. After you’ve placed everything on the fire and stirred as necessary. Once you turn the fire off, set a timer for 5 minutes and in that five minutes, DO NOT focus on how loud your stomach is growling, DO NOT focus on how long your day was and how badly you just want to eat, DO NOT focus on how good the food is smelling; but for 5 minutes focus on the fact that God is making you into His Gourmet Masterpiece and just as that food on your stove or in your oven is in the process of flavor-bonding and melding God is in the process of bonding and melding who you are with who He is and making something NEW and IMPROVED and just like that food is going to taste better after 5 minutes of sitting and resting, your life is going to TASTE so much better after allowing God the time to work while you just SIT STILL. “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. [TRUSTS in Him]” Psalm 34:8.

If you decide to take this challenge stop back by this page or the Facebook page and comment and let me and the others know how your 5 minutes went. Let us know if God spoke to you in that time and if you were blessed by it, CHALLENGED by it…

Bless God & God Bless

THE Writer’s Pen, Angel

a.k.a. Angelique

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