Making bread

I don't generally buy bread. I can't believe the price of a decent loaf of bread these days. Even the little discount-day-old stores are too much. Good grief. Bread is so cheap to make that it should only cost about 29 cents to buy. In my humble opinion, of course.

My mom gave me an Oster bread maker about 15 years ago as a Christmas gift. I wore it out, took a sister's machine (Mom gave them to all of us), and wore that one out. Then I bought a Zoji that makes bread like a regular loaf, and I've had it ever since.

Today, we're out of bread. This happens every 2-3 days or so. Hunk O Man will generally mention it, and this is my signal that I have to load up the bread machine that night so there will be a fresh loaf in the morning.

I've been on strike this week and last week, so I'm not cooking at all. Last week, Barbie made the bread. It was FABULOUS. Very light and perfectly formed. She now is up there with JB in the "We Make Great Bread" category. I fall in and out depending on how much salt I add. Rose insists she is terrible at it. I think she just doesn't want to do it.

Bread-making is just not an exact science. There are so many variables.

I think this is true about not just the bread I make, but my walk with God. It's never an exact science. It's not all "just do this or that" and things will turn out fine. If that were true, the Hebrews of old would have been perfect, and Jesus wouldn't have needed to come set us free from sin.

Today I read this from Luke 6:48-49 -- words from Jesus himself --

"If you work the words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who dug deep and laid the foundation of his house on bedrock. When the river burst its banks and crashed against the house, nothing could shake it; it was built to last. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a dumb carpenter who built a house but skipped the foundation. When the swollen river came crashing in, it collapsed like a house of cards. It was a total loss."

It would be so nice to just set my life on auto every 2-3 days and wake up with a wonderful, perfect life that obeyed God and lived out what I read daily. If only kneading His Words into my life were as easy as turning on the bread machine.

The ingredients are there, the process is there -- but am I doing it daily? The best way to check is just to look around me. Are my girls loving God and loving others? Each other? Are friends making God choices based on some offhand thing I mentioned?

This is the true test, and there you have it straight from the source -- in order to be effective, the Word can't just be read or studied. It needs to be worked into our lives, lived out daily, and having an effect around us. Reading and studying are just the tools we use to get it into us.

The trick is to turn it on. Or you're toast.

xoxox