Magic Ingredient

Do we have any bakers out there with secret ingredients that make their recipes extra special?  Do you follow a master recipe and then add some secret item in it that makes it stand out?  This secret ingredient likely makes it a sure winner at a baking competition.  You will have to let me know when you are up for making that special recipe so I can come and be that official taste tester.  😊

I was listening to one of my favorite instrumental podcasts recently by Paul Cardall called a New Creation.  It is an exceptionally beautiful piece of music and the video used with it on YouTube is an incredible imagining of God’s work.  It had me imagining God creating this incredible world in another way and thinking how He determined the ingredients to use.  Everything in this world is a living creation, especially His people.

I am imagining how He created the body and its features but what about the ingredients that we cannot see.  God gave us a sense of smell for us to appreciate such things as the smell of a fresh cut strawberry or the beautiful fragrance of His flowers or so many other incredible aromas He has made.  Then there is sight He gave us so we can take in the beauty of a cute fawn running across a field, or see the person we are engaging with, or the food we are cooking. 

Ahh, the touch of a friend’s comforting tap on the shoulder, or a loved one’s embrace, or the warmth of a bonfire on a cool evening.  What about the yummy taste of s’mores at that bonfire, or our favorite food, or a cool drink on a hot day?  Sound, the sound of “I love you,” or a young child’s gleeful expression. 

Consider these hidden gifts from God as not the icing on the cake.  He has given us so much more.  What about those hidden virtues that He has also placed deep down in our souls to discover.  Virtues of Humility, Gratitude, Knowledge, Courage, Understanding, Piety, Wisdom and more have been gifted to each of us. 

Wait, there is more!  What makes every recipe/person unique is the charisms He has planted within us.  Although we may have some of the same charisms as others, the amount of each and the mission associated with them will vary.  You and I may both have a charism of Hospitality but his unit of measure may be different.  You may have more of the charisms of Intercessory Prayer, and/or Faith, and Giving, and I may have a little dab of those but a different amount of Service and Evangelism. 

Our great God must have had a most joyous time with incredible anticipation when He created you and me.  But the magic ingredient is yet to be revealed.  Before we were formed in the womb He packaged us up and sent us off with that magic ingredient and that ingredient is the engine of it all, His Love.  God’s incredible Merciful Love is intended for us to use and to help others discover all those beautiful ingredients within them.  God’s real secret is that the more we use the gifts He has given us then the more we discover other gifts within ourselves that He has also given us. 

He knows we will make mistakes, hence the greatest reason to lean heavily on Him.  His merciful love heals, picks us up and puts us back into this world to continue to make a difference.  His magic ingredient is not to keep but to give away even to those who are suffering and may even hurt us.  His magic ingredient is more powerful than anything else in this world and if we use it the way He intends then by His grace we can make an incredible difference.  We must make sure that we share that magic ingredient with everyone we come in contact with and when we do we are sure to win that final baking prize.  So be sure to go out and Shine Like the Son.  God bless you.