It was a layering kind of food day yesterday. Isabelle and I started the afternoon by making 7-layer bars for part of Phil’s birthday celebration, which starts tonight for dinner. She, of course, wanted a graham cracker, then some chocolate chips, then some butterscotch chips, then, well, I think you get the idea.
Later, we made Mediterranean lasagna. She ate a few red peppers and wanted eggplant as I diced the vegetables. When I mixed the ricotta and the eggs, she demanded some of each of those. While I was shredding the Gruyere cheese, she was almost inconsolable when I told her she couldn’t have any.
Her insistence on eating the ingredients separately rather than waiting for the finished product reminded me of what we miss sometimes in life.
When we want sex without intimacy.
Relationship without commitment.
Love without sacrifice.
Obedience without respect.
Like chocolate chips or ricotta cheese, these things can be good or OK on their own but are even better when served together with the ingredients that make them complete.
Paul writes in Romans about how the whole world knows about God because His presence is evident in what is created, but how we choose not to see Him.
“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. … They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” (Romans 1:21-23, 25)
I pray for the strength to wait for completion rather than settle for a taste of something that is far less satisfying.