“…remember that He who created you to be creative gave you the things with which to make beauty and gave you sensitivity to appreciate and respond to His creation. Creativity is His gift to you and the ‘raw materials’ to be put together in various ways are His gift to you as well.†–Edith Schaefer.
Baking Creatively
How cool is it that God can take a weeping willow tree, giant burning star millions of miles away, rolling green hills, the most marvelous shades of blushing reds, violets and blues, a wispy breeze, and order them ever so perfectly to create the most wonderful sunset you have ever seen? By God’s grace He does this day in and day out around the world, all to proclaim His glory. It is simply astonishing.
When I switch on my mixer, I find myself thinking of God proclaiming his glory through my creative hands and with His ingredients to bring about something truly delightful… COOKIES! By combining a pinch of salt, couple eggs, flour, sugar, etc. with the right technique, all in the right order I can create something delectably divine! This, I realize, is exactly what I was made to do, not specifically bake cookies…but to reflect my Creator through baking cookies.
Baking Imperfectly
In the process of baking cookies, it’s not perfection that I seek (I am extremely aware I fall completely short of that). Cookies will burn, look odd, or I will simply forget to add an entire ingredient because I got too wrapped up in a phone conversation (Now I almost never take calls while my mixer is going). Yes, I may get bummed a bit, but perfection is not the point.
Failure actually reminds me that I cannot rest on my ability to bake alone. My ability alone will always fail me, but I can rely on God’s grace by finding my identity and worth in Him through Christ’s work at the cross. This frees me to be more adventurous as I bake, more creative, and more at ease. Because my identity rests in Christ, I am not confined to the title “bakerâ€, but able to cling to my identity as a child of God. This is a zillion times better than any compliment or label someone would tag onto my name.
Baking for His Glory
I love the verse our pastor, Jonathan Dodson, used in the latest sermon on work:Â Colossians 3:23 “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men”.
As Edith Schaefer puts it above, “Creativity is His gift to you and the ‘raw materials’ to be put together in various ways are His gift to you as well,” then God has certainly blessed me with edible raw materials and the gift to bake… which miraculously mix together to form a mouth-watering treat! What a wonderful gift to have! It is my job and JOY to “work heartily”, baking away, to glorify Him with what I have been given.
*Rachel is married to Taylor and they are both part of a South City Group. She turned her passion into a business and now bakes cookies professionally, shipping them across the country! You can check our her cookies at her ETSY shop Cookie Crowd.Â