The Secret Power of the Hidden

We are all out of bread, Mom.

There is plenty of frozen pizza.  And there are tortillas.  And lots of pasta and rice…

…But still... no bread.

I guess we’ll just have to starve then.

Of course, eventually I relent from dooming my family to starvation and decide to make some home-made French bread. I know I am a sucker.  I also admit that the smell gets to me as much as the crunchy-on-the-outside-soft-and-smooshy-on-the-inside dripping with buttery goodness.

I don’t necessarily like to bake.  Mostly I put up with the process.  It’s a chore. It’s one of those things I would much rather delegate to somebody else, and pull my chair up to the table when everything is ready.

Unglamorous and ordinary as it may be, we still need to eat bread, I am told, so I get the flour from the pantry and measure out three and a half cups. Almost a pound of white, tasteless, boring powder heaping inside the bowl.

Throw in a quarter of an ounce of yeast. That's seven grams.  

Approximately one to sixty ratio.  The yeast gets practically lost in the mound of flour.

It’s then that it hits me.

The kingdom of heaven is like…

… yeast…

… which a woman  took…

… and…

… hid…

… in three pecks of flour…

Yeast. It doesn't take much.  It’s seemingly insignificant.  Mostly it’s hidden. It’s so outnumbered, outweighed it appears to be a lost cause. Practically hopeless against dismal odds.

But, small and insignificant and hidden, it's the powerful, key ingredient that works its magical way through the entire batch…

Until it’s all leavened.

That’s what kingdom of God is like, says Jesus. 

A woman.  Seemingly insignificant, unimportant, largely ignored less-of-a-person...

The flour. Ordinary, boring, run of the mill stuff of life. 

A tiny speck of yeast. A microscopic, invisible to the naked eye unicellular fungus.

Seriously?!!!

Mix it all together… Wait...and wait some more. Bake at 450… and you get...

… a tantalizing smell for the nostrils…

… a joyous celebration for the taste buds…

... a grateful satisfaction for the stomach...

... shared and enjoyed with those we love…

Just a tiny foretaste of what the Kingdom of God is like...

The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened. Matthew 13:33

Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. John 6:35

He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, so you would learn that men and women don’t live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God’s mouth. Deuteronomy 8:3