Let it Boil Over

One of the many things I love about my wife is her cooking.

Catherine is very talented at creating different dishes, mixing various ingredients and preparing meals that are both healthy and tasty.

Sitting at the table for dinner, for instance, I know I’ll be well-nourished and never have a complaint about what I’m eating (unless, of course, she sneaks in a few mushrooms or some coconut oil, hoping I won’t notice).

Another reason I’m so grateful for her cooking is because I’m not very good at it – at all.

I mean, I know I could follow a recipe and I’d be able to survive just fine if I had to cook for myself, but my longstanding repertoire has never really extended far beyond a delicious sampling of pancakes or scrambled eggs, homemade sandwiches, microwaved vegetables and chicken or hamburgers thrown on a trusty barbeque.

Outside of these, there’s nothing much that has ever separated me from frozen TV dinners and take-out restaurants.

When cooking in the kitchen, I might get so flustered or distracted, it’s almost a guarantee any pot I have simmering on the stove will boil over, causing great frustration.

Now, you don’t have to be a culinary expert to know having a pot boil over is a bad thing.

When the top starts foaming up, you better remove the lid or start stirring. Otherwise, your stove flame might go out or, even worse, you could burn your food.

While the simmering technique may be helpful when cooking, it is simply not good enough when it comes to our faith.

Our faith must be stirred, yes, but it must also grow to be so strong that it eventually boils over and is shared with others.

Much like cooking when we check on our food boiling on the stove or baking in the oven, we also need to assess our faith at various points, ensuring we are on the right road, moving forward with the Lord.

If not, perhaps we could stand to be turned over, whisked or poked like food being cooked, in order that God can speak to us in the right way and that we can be fully open to receiving His direction.

But once we’ve come to such a discovery, we then need to turn our stove setting to HIGH and let our belief and faith practice explode from within us, burning brightly for all to experience. (Psalm 39:3)

Having a relationship with God that is so complete and powerful, we can then let it boil over by introducing His love to those we know and come to meet, spreading His Good News each day.

That way, with a heart burning for Jesus and His Holy Spirit, the glow of God’s love can radiate through us and help transform those around us. (Matthew 5:16)