Waiting
When I mix all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, I have to allow time for them to 'gel' together, for the dough to take a life of its own and grow and multiply. I can't either force or accelerate this process. Change takes time. I watch and I wait.
The waiting can either be an extremely frustrating process that is forced on me, or I can learn to embrace it as a conscious exercise of letting go, a practice of resting and trusting, a willing surrender to the fact that I am not in control. There are forces in life that are at work even when my own work is completed. The final result will depend on their favorable interaction.
Counter-intuitive
Some steps in life as well as in bread-making process may appear counter-intuitive or non-sensical. Just as the dough doubled in size, I had to punch it down! Sometimes in life, after a long,long wait, I feel like I am finally getting somewhere, I am finally reaching a destination, and then I get kicked in the stomach and collapse on the bottom of the mixing bowl!
What was that all about?!!! I protest, my bubble deflated, my efforts wasted and I feel like I am back to square one.
Why is God allowing this pain, this disappointment, this rejection?
Pain is probably the most counter-intuitive ingredient in the making of life. But, it is the key ingredient in transforming shallow, ignorant, naive, immature, superficial, selfish life into the one of integrity, maturity and substance that can truly nourish the world riddled with confusion, pain, sin and suffering.
But, this is not where it ends.
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