Cake Recipe


Let me just say up front that I am not a cook. Probably never will be. I can manage to flip a burger or two and I can handle a steak on the grill but don’t ever confuse me with being a cook. Just ask my son.

Years ago when my son James was only 2 or 3 years old I bravely took on the task of making him macaroni and cheese for dinner. My wife was at home but was busy doing something else so I volunteered to make the one meal I felt comfortable cooking. So there I was in the kitchen cooking away when our dear son noticed that I was the one in charge of his food. He looked at me and figured out what I was up to and then turned and ran to his mom as fast as he could and yelled out, “Mom! Dad is in the kitchen!” Apparently James not only felt like I shouldn’t be cooking his food but he didn’t like the idea that I was even in the kitchen. Somewhere in all that yelling I detected a lack of confidence in my cooking skills.

As I said I am not a cook so I am not use to using recipes but here is something that I really don’t understand.

Today my wife was talking on the phone with my mom and apparently mom had found a cake recipe in a magazine and she thought it sounded it good. So she was telling Janice about the recipe and what was in it and I could tell from the excitement in my wife’s voice that she thought it sounded good too.

See I just don’t get that. How can you talk about all the things that are in a cake like eggs, baking powder, pecans, buttermilk, salt, sugar, etc and somehow come to the conclusion of, “Yummy, that sounds great.”

Sorry I just don’t get it. Of course me being a male I am simple person and a visual creature so I need something more than just a list of ingredients to determine if this is going to be a cake that I would eat. I need a picture, a taste of the batter, the smell of it cooking or better yet. I need a bite of it.

I need to experience the cake. Not just hear about what makes up the cake.

In a way it is the same for me when dealing with the things God.

God is all about forgiveness but for me to really understand forgiveness I need to do more than just hear about it. I need to experience it. I need to see it in action.

When I have hurt someone and then apologize and I see them coming to me face to face and offering forgiveness I get a visual of what forgiveness is. And when I forgive someone I get a better picture of how God forgives and a better understanding of why I need His forgiveness so much.

And when I see someone loving me and not just saying it then love comes to life. It becomes real. And in return when I am able to really show love to another person it allows me to fully understand verses such as, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.”

I can read that verse and I can hear people talk about that verse. And I can even hear sermons dissecting the verse but let me see someone loving me or give me someone to love and that’s when I truly start to understand it. That’s when I can understand how hard real love is and how hard it must have been for God to give his only son for us. And even though it was hard he loved us “so” much that he went ahead and did it anyway. He didn’t just say he loved us. He showed us he loved us.

We can talk all day about love and forgiveness but until we experience it we won’t really understand it.

Just talking about it is kind of like listing all of the ingredients in a cake recipe. It doesn’t sound all that good and I really can’t imagine how it is going to taste.

But when we taste the batter of forgiveness. And smell the aroma of love. When we experience it, then it becomes real. And that is something you can seek your teeth into.

And it sure sounds better than salt, sugar, baking powder, and shortening.