Baker
She loved to bake.
She loved the science of it. The precision. The math.
She loved baking all kinds of things, but her favorite was bread. Just bread. She would make dozens of hot fresh loaves on the weekends and give them to family and friends. She was even part of a private facebook group called “The Loafers” that discussed and shared all things bread related. As a matter of fact, she had just started teaching all that she knew about bread baking to a small group of women from her neighborhood. She was very well-liked not only for her amazingly delicious treats, but for her generous heart. She was only too happy to share her tricks of the trade. Her latest lesson was on yeast.
“Yeast is what causes bread to rise, ladies. When yeast does its thing, a chemical reaction occurs and carbon dioxide is generated causing the dough to expand. It also adds flavor. But how do you know the yeast is working? It’s when you see the dough expanding. The change has to happen on the inside, for you to be able to see the results on the outside. That’s because yeast is alive! It is a living organism. Do you know what happens when you try to bake bread with dead yeast? You get dead bread. A small, dense, heavy rock. The change didn’t happen on the inside. But if you’ve got live yeast…and your dough rises…then you can punch it down, knead it, shape it, let it rise again, and bake it. Dough can be shaped into just about anything…because it’s stretchy. That’s because of gluten…but we’ll save that topic for another lesson.
When you eat freshly baked bread right from the oven it has a beautiful golden crusty exterior. And when you cut into it, the inside is soft, airy, and yeasty smelling! There’s nothing like it ladies!”
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
Psalm 139:13-14
Sometimes I think God is like a master baker. He is trying to mold us and shape us into something beautiful…a wonderful aroma. God’s word says we are the aroma of Christ (2 Cor. 2:15). As the Lord begins to shape you, He starts on the inside, and as change happens on the inside of you, the world will begin to notice it on the outside of you, but it is only when you allow Him to have His way within. And when He has his way within, He begins to knead you, mold you, and shape you into exactly what He created you to be…who you are meant to be. And when you are who you are meant to be, who He created you to be, then you can do what He created you to do…what you are meant to do.
This puts us in a position so we can say yes to God. And when we say yes, we say it with our heart, soul, and might. It is then that we can become shapers…World Shapers.
All of this happens when we allow God to have His way in every part of our life. And when He changes us, He changes our family, our work, our neighborhood, our city…our world. But it starts with us.
It starts within.
Is there anything happening inside of you? Can the world see it on the outside? Is the “yeast” alive? Is God able to stretch you, mold you, shape you? Allow the truth of the Word to penetrate and intersect your life…to expand inside of you so that the world can’t help but notice the bigness of God on the outside!
Dear Father. I want to be malleable in Your hands. You are the potter and I am the clay. Help me not to be so hardened that I cannot be changed. Mold me and make me into the vessel for Your use! My life is Yours. Amen.
