I do not understand the recent fascination with cupcakes. To me a special cake is huge, having three layers, interesting ingredients that make it moist and flavorful, and a filling as well as a frosting. Then I found a recipe for dark chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache filling, and a sour cream chocolate frosting. Okay, I thought, maybe these cupcakes are worth eating.
I spent two afternoons working on these things, two wasted afternoons as it turns out. Something happened to my chocolate ganache filling, and I still don’t know what it was. Maybe I stubbed my toe when I measured the heavy cream and got a half teaspoon too much. Maybe I crossed my eyes when I weighed the chocolate and used half an ounce too little. Whatever it was, it ruined the cupcakes. The picture showed a cupcake cut in half with a rich, creamy filling clearly visible. Mine had a hole in the center where the filling was supposed to have been. True, your taste buds could tell something else had once been there, but it was not there any longer, and we couldn’t find it anywhere. It had simply disappeared, leaving me with just another cupcake, and I was supremely disappointed.
I wonder if God does not sometimes feel the same about us. Yes, we must live in a world of sin and evil and hatred and all sorts of villainy. But He expects us to stand untainted, obviously different than those around us. Too often we just melt into the crowd. Maybe you could tell we had once been there—maybe someone remembers a person who was a little different than everyone else, but if he can no longer be found, how long will that influence last? Someone who disappears so easily will not be remembered long.
We are the sweet filling in the middle of a sinful world. We should be plainly visible. We should make the world a better place to live. Everyone should be scrambling to get to the good stuff—us! Our speech, our actions, our forgiving nature and calming influence, the fact that we actually stand for something and stand firm in it, rather than going along with the popular notions of right and wrong which change with the seasons—those things ought to make us easy to see, not easily camouflaged.
Make sure you stand out. Make sure you don’t become part of an amalgamation that makes you just another face in the crowd, a hole where something special used to be.
So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and questionings; that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life…Phil 2:12-16.
Dene Ward
I spent two afternoons working on these things, two wasted afternoons as it turns out. Something happened to my chocolate ganache filling, and I still don’t know what it was. Maybe I stubbed my toe when I measured the heavy cream and got a half teaspoon too much. Maybe I crossed my eyes when I weighed the chocolate and used half an ounce too little. Whatever it was, it ruined the cupcakes. The picture showed a cupcake cut in half with a rich, creamy filling clearly visible. Mine had a hole in the center where the filling was supposed to have been. True, your taste buds could tell something else had once been there, but it was not there any longer, and we couldn’t find it anywhere. It had simply disappeared, leaving me with just another cupcake, and I was supremely disappointed.
I wonder if God does not sometimes feel the same about us. Yes, we must live in a world of sin and evil and hatred and all sorts of villainy. But He expects us to stand untainted, obviously different than those around us. Too often we just melt into the crowd. Maybe you could tell we had once been there—maybe someone remembers a person who was a little different than everyone else, but if he can no longer be found, how long will that influence last? Someone who disappears so easily will not be remembered long.
We are the sweet filling in the middle of a sinful world. We should be plainly visible. We should make the world a better place to live. Everyone should be scrambling to get to the good stuff—us! Our speech, our actions, our forgiving nature and calming influence, the fact that we actually stand for something and stand firm in it, rather than going along with the popular notions of right and wrong which change with the seasons—those things ought to make us easy to see, not easily camouflaged.
Make sure you stand out. Make sure you don’t become part of an amalgamation that makes you just another face in the crowd, a hole where something special used to be.
So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and questionings; that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life…Phil 2:12-16.
Dene Ward
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