Adjusting to the World: Unexpected Places

One of my favorite things about walking with the Lord is the way He consistently surprises me with lessons and new perspectives of Himself in the most unexpected of places.

Scott’s birthday was about a month ago, and that was the first time she began to realize that with birthdays come cake. Logically, then, when I started telling her that Christmas was Jesus’ birthday, she began asking me if we were going to have a cake for His birthday. Whenever the subject of His birthday came up, so, too, arose questions about His cake. I’m no baker, nor do I claim to have extraordinary cake decorating abilities (as you’ll soon see), but I wanted to fulfill my daughter’s request. Last night, I made a cake so that we could decorate it today.

This morning, I set out to create some Christmas memories for Leah, and wound up with a lot more than I bargained for as God showed me a few things about Himself and life with Him. Bear with me on this one. It makes sense to me…..but it might be one of the more odd parallels God has ever given me.

As I started frosting the cake, I soon remembered that I’m just not good at this, and wondered what I had gotten myself into. I thought about just throwing in the towel and giving it up, thinking that it wasn’t worth doing if it wasn’t perfect. As I worked, though, I began to see the cake as a sort of representation of my life. Soon, I thought of something: the cake – like my life – is for Jesus. Neither has to look perfect, because really, all He’s concerned with is the offering and the fact that it’s dedicated to Him. The effort and the intent are what matter. The heart behind the project are the important thing. I live to please Jesus, and I make random birthday cakes to please my little girl. The products aren’t perfect, but the motive behind them is.

I didn’t have a plan for how I wanted the cake to look, so I had to make it up as I went along. That made it kind of messy, and pretty random. At some point, I decided that there needed to be a little icing border along the bottom of the cake, which went well…..until I realized I was running out of icing and had another side of the cake to do.

“Nice,” I thought. “What am I going to do about that? Keep that side pointed against the wall so no one sees it?” I worked on it more, though, and was barely able to squeeze out enough frosting to cover the edges of the cake. I ran out just as I reached the last corner.

Through that, God showed me how His sanctification works. Sometimes, in life, I think that I’m just too big a mess and too sinful and too much for God to fix. I see all of the imperfections in my life and wonder, desperately, if I’ll ever be all that He wants me to be, or if His work on me will ever be finished. Sometimes I feel like I am an endless project, with one thing after another needing His touch and never quite making it to the point where I should be. God reminded me this morning, though, that He is enough. He is enough to cover it all, and He is enough to create His image in me. It won’t happen until the very end of my story, but it will happen. He can pull it off because He is enough.

There was one corner, though, that was quickly messed up. Every time I would frost it, I’d turn away and turn back only to find the icing gone. I covered that corner with the border I was trying to get around the whole thing, and when I looked again a minute later, the border was gone….and a little girl sitting nearby had icing on her fingers. As frustrating as that was, I saw God in it.

He reminded me then of how He works. He reminded me that He works and works and works….and that sometimes I mess up what He has already done in me. He reminded me that even in those moments, when He is frustrated and even a little disappointed that I did what I did, He loves me beyond measure. He showed me, too, that in other ways, sometimes the work He does is just irresistible to people around me. Follow me here. If I am the cake, and He is the baker, sometimes His touch on my life makes me irresistible and attractive in ways I can’t understand. People around me might be drawn to me not because of me….not because of what I look like or what I do….but because of who is working on me and because He makes me good.

Sometimes, people are attracted to a life that is covered in the fingerprints of God, and it’s hard for them to stay away.

And the sprinkles….the sprinkles that I covered the cake with…..

The sprinkles are joy. They go all over the place, bouncing over the cake and onto the table and overflow onto the cake plate. There is no containing them. They go where they want to go, and nothing I do can hide them or restrain them. They abound, drawing people in, and cover everything I am and everything I do.