The Making of An Awesome MESS-AGE

Some time ago I heard a guest preacher say, 

You can’t spell a message without a mess.

Amen to that, I thought. He was wise person indeed. He also talked about junk in the trunk, but that's another topic I won't touch here.  

We all want to bring a message to the world.

Important message.

Even life-saving message.

But, we don't like the messy part. We want to ‘sanitize’ the mess out of message. Make it feel-good, nice, soft and cuddly. Or at least palatable. Less damaging, especially to our reputation. 

We want our message, but not so... messy?

According to English dictionary – as well as real life... 

... if you don't have a mess... you don't have a message.

You think you have a message?

Great! Show me the mess...

But that's not the whole story!

What struck me on that perfect bean soup day, while the bubbling pot was slowly simmering on our kitchen stove for hours, was that sometimes, when you and I are in the middle of it, it’s really hard to distinguish what is that message inside our glorious mess. 

All I see is a grand mess, but I can’t detect, I can't decipher a message.

This is where my slow-simmering pot of soup comes into play.

See, to make good bean soup, it takes time. A LOT of time, in my humble opinion. Not just the time to peel and chop, shred and saute. That's just preparation. That's just the beginning! What follows is four to five hours of slow-simmering on the stove-top, or inside a crock pot. Now, to me that's approximate definition of eternity, especially considering that you are going through all this trouble for a single meal which will be consumed and then forgotten in one sitting!

This little fact makes me wonder how much longer must it take to make some good, hearty, soul-nourishing life-soup out of all our heartbreak and failure, disappointment and disillusionment, weakness, blindness and sin?

Your and my amazing, life-saving, messy messages don't need just mess alone. The mess needs some time to process, to digest, to AGE! 

That, my friends, is how the yummy messages are created.  Put your mess in a pot, fill it up, then slow-simmer for a much longer while than you think is humanly endurable... until all the different flavors of the mess inside come together into one pot of pure deliciousness. 

And, voila, you got your MESS-AGE!