SOLD! To the Lady with the big belly!

Song of the week: Oceans-Hillsong

Doesn’t that cake look yummy?

I love cake walks and auctions for delicious looking desserts. I can hear the gavel now…Sold! To the lady with the big belly...Fortunately so far, no auctioneer has actually said that to me. But if one did, I don’t think it would detour my fast train toward sweets. I love desserts. Real food? Ehh not so much… When they took my appendix out earlier this year I was sure they had finally finished off my appetite for anything other than cookies, cakes and European Chocolate (yes there’s a difference, American Choc. tastes like Ex-lax in comparison).  I honesty couldn’t stomach anything but desserts.

I’m afraid, personality wise, I’m a bit like a pillow hopping chihuahua who wears off her calories by worrying…and then seeks out sweets to sustain me. It doesn’t actually matter if I have anything really real to worry about. I will wiggle and squirm my way through quite a few desserts justifying myself along the way. I’ll happily make something up to worry about just so I have an opportunity to relax over a healing dessert. Hmmm…sounding kinda troubled here aren’t I…anyway…

When I Posted my Victoria sponge cake on FB, I had more comments and likes than just about anything else I had posted that month. Including pictures of my delicious kids! GASP! I know.

  VS  

And scripture verses? Well those are always duds on FB right? I can post a fabulous, awe inspiring, make me simultaneously snort and cry scripture verse, and what will I get for it??? Maybe one deflated comment, a couple of dull blue thumbs-ups…who appear, Eeyore style, to lack enthusiasm in their thumbs-uppiness to me.

But post a dessert I’m about to dive into and watch it ladies!  They’ll be knocking each other out to comment.  Asking for recipes and pounding their seethingly jealous comments into their keyboards like Lot’s unwanted house guest pounded on his door…give me what you have!

It never fails. If I post that I’m baking cookies, threats to come over to my house light up the screen. It’s kinda scary and inspiring and addicting all at the same time.

Is it because all my FB friends are unspiritual pigs? Or because I’m an unspiritual pig? I do post more food than scripture on my FB…Ugh am I leading in this sickness?

What is It, I wondered the other day, that makes food so fun to post and comment on? And what is it about posting a scripture verse that makes the FB crickets chirp?

Experience….

We like to experience things don’t we? You show me a picture of a yummy freshly baked Chocolate cake…I want to eat it, taste it, enjoy it with friends and a real cup of tea. Maybe right now at your house if I can so impose????…I don’t want to you write me a sentence saying, “Oh chocolate cake, thou art inspiring my glands toward salivation.”

And no one ever writes letters to me about why I should enjoy that chocolate cake, believe in it’s goodness. We can just tell can’t we? You see the picture of me and my smeared face and empty plate and you, greedy little devil, covet it for yourself don’t you?  A picture’s worth a thousand words. And so it is with our faith.  A real life picture of our walk with God, is worth so much more than a FB spiritual slap up, lecture, or finger pointing scripture verse. Give me something I can sink my teeth into, grip with both hands, and run out of the room screaming cause everyone is chasing after me for it.

Christianity is meant to be experienced. Guess that’s why we still have bodies connected to our minds. It’s meant to be fresh, hot, fun with friends or savored alone curled up on the couch with a cold glass of milk. It’s meant to be experienced and experienced some more. Not rolled into a sentence fragment and sliced up so small that we can’t tell what it actually is anymore.

Think of Christ’s parables. They were His version of a Facebook chocolate cake.  He made the people feel, absorb, drink in what it was to know God, covet what he had, and reach out for more.  A bigger slice.  “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Ps. 34:8) Right?

So am I Advocating dipping your bible in chocolate and posting a picture of it on FB? Tempting….but no. Shake out of it….

I can post Luke 6:31 saying, “Treat others as you’d have them treat you.” …which is nice, it’s wisdom, but that truth falls to the ground and dies, if it is not planted in rich waters. Those ingredients for that fab. cake are useless if not mixed together, cooked and eaten.

I can write a scripture verse, or I can live the scripture verse. We know there is a stark difference. I can read you the recipe for my Victoria sponge cake and tell you to get with the dessert program and make one.   Or I can post a pic of me enjoying it. Experience.  It’s why we don’t feel so guilty when we skim by a long bible post on FB….we know we can go read it for ourselves…but…most won’t.

So what do we do then?

We post us being that scripture.  Make a Christian marriage look tempting church.  Make being a Christian employer look hot. A coveted person to work for or with.  Raise delicious kids to be proud of cause our kids have seen the good tasting stuff coming out of our lives, and have experienced God’s love through our fingertips and words.  Bake some irresistible Christian cake and post it.

This world doesn’t need any more recipes…we need to see the evidence of the completed work. It’s not legalism to say, “Give me the cake gosh darn it!” It’s how we’re wired to worship God. God is doing the fab. work all around us every day. We are that picture on FB friends. What we say, how we love, how we extend grace, matters.

Now go light up your screen.