It Will All Be Alright In The End

I have learnt not to trust cooking programmes. 

 

They do not present a realistic view of what a kitchen really looks like when one is in the middle of cooking.  Instead, they are air-brushed and clinically clean - not an accurate reflection of real life in the kitchen.

 

Whenever I am cooking a big meal, my kitchen looks an absolute mess during the process.  When I am halfway through, there are pots and pans stacked by the sink, soaking to get them clean again.  Every utensil I own is scattered somewhere about the kitchen.  There will be food out on every available surface and it will all look a complete tip.

 

However, by the time it comes to serve everything, I will have tidied away the left-over ingredients, washed up the stack of dishes and cleaned every surface so that my kitchen once again appears presentable.

 

When I'm in the middle of cooking, I never worry about the mess around me.  I know that it will be alright in the end.

 

As Paolo Coelho said, "It will be alright in the end.  If it's not alright, it's not the end."

 

However, I rarely apply this principle to the rest of my life. 

 

I panic if I am in the middle of sorting something out, or working on something and processing or creating something, and it looks messy.  If things don't appear to be in control, I begin to feel uneasy and doubt that everything will be alright in the end.  I lack the long-term vision that seems to come so easily when I am cooking.  Instead, I get caught up in the mess that surrounds me.

 

But God promises that everything will be alright in the end.  John writes in his revelation of heaven,

“Look, God’s home is now among his people!  He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.  All these things are gone forever.”

 

[Revelation 21:3-4 NLT]

 

No matter what life might look like now, no matter how often I find myself in the middle of the mess, I know that it will all be alright in the end.  Because of Him.

 

 

 

Cake Mix

I have just put a delicious blackberry and apple sponge cake in the oven and have greatly enjoyed licking the bowl.

 

It is always the best bit.

 

When I am baking, it always amazes me how the raw ingredients are transformed when they are combined and cooked.  Although technically edible raw, the uncooked ingredients by themselves aren't particularly tasty - sugar, butter, flour and eggs.  But combined into cake mix, they are somehow transformed into something delicious.

 

And when they are cooked, they create the most wonderful sweet sponge.

 

Heat changes everything.

 

In the same way, we are changed by 'heat' - by those situations and circumstances and difficulties that 'test' us. 

 

When we find ourselves in tense and pressurised conditions, we often find that we are transformed, too.

 

The Bible compares these situations to the purification of metal by fire:

"These trials will show that your faith is genuine.  It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold."

 

[1 Peter 1:7 NLT]

 

If we are never 'tested', if we never experience difficult circumstances, we will never change or mature or grow.  We won't be transformed.  We will remain as cake mix which, whilst it is delicious, is not all that it was meant to be.  It is not the finished product.

 

And when we face these difficult trials and tests and temptations, the Bible says that we don't need to face them alone.  God will be right there with us and will always give us a way out.  He will take the metaphorical cake out of the oven before it burns.

"No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face.  All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it."

[1 Corinthians 10:13 MSG]