WHY NOT SUGAR SWEET?

SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR

I grew up in a home where at anytime, anyone could walk into my house, walk downstairs to the freezer and find at least ten different types of cookies. There are bakeries all over the world that would love to have my mom bake for them. She was known for her baking, the incredible taste and the variety: cherry bars, m&m cookies, orange chocolate bars, mint cookies, peanut/raisin cookies, chocolate fudge bars, peanut butter balls…. I have grown up and continued the baking tradition with some variances. I’ve added brownies to this list due to my husband’s cravings for them.  My friend Barb convinced me truffles were easy to make, then my daughter and I decided to dabble in wedding cakes. It’s my mom’s and daughter’s love language to bake– bake sweet things that is. We are not a family on a paleo diet. In fact, when things don’t turn out well in the kitchen, our motto is “the only thing that makes sugar taste better is more sugar!”

TOO MUCH SUGAR IS A BAD THING! WHAT?

I know it’s shocking, isn’t it? I can type sugar into the Internet and horrible articles titled “146 bad things sugar is doing to your health” or “141 reasons to give up sugar” shows up. How can something so good be also bad? As much as this pains me to realize and live out–woman cannot live on sugar alone. We need a variety of food groups. We need substance. It’s the same in our Christian life. We cannot survive on sugar sweet emotions. Our God, our creator, didn’t give us one set of emotions. He didn’t make us happy all the time. Sometimes we are struggling. Sometimes we are hurt or depressed. Sometimes we are tired or perplexed. It’s the natural consequence of living in this world. If I act sugar sweet all of time, I minimize mine and other’s pain. I don’t allow them to feel sad or struggle. I am  adding to them the pressure of “a good Christian” doesn’t feel that way. We lose our authenticity with each other if we only allow one set of emotions.

I don’t want to hide my struggles because they show my need for Jesus and magnify His love and faithfulness.

 It’s what we see in the Bible. One of these places is in the  account of Abraham. Before God redeems Abram and renames him Abraham, he made wrong choices, a lot of wrong choices. God told him to go to Canaan, Abram obeyed. He is not there very long when a famine occurs and he leaves his inheritance from God and goes to Egypt. There he lied about his wife. His lie had her taken away and brought  into pharaoh’s house. God rescued her. He is told God will provide him a son. He waits ten years for this promise to be fulfilled then goes into his wife’s servant to produce a son. When this turns out badly and his wife goes to him for help between the women, he takes the hands off approach. Some of these actions caused anguish and showed a lack of faith. Some of these years were hard. Some of the consequences never went away. This is a normal icky, muck filled life. This is not all sugar. Abraham’s life isn’t all sweet but God doesn’t hide the ugly.

GOD’S REWARD DOESN’T DEPEND ON PERFECTION

I believe if we lived with Abraham and Sarah, we would have heard conversations on their faith in the God who called us to Himself, but also conversations like: “where is He?” “What is He doing? Why does this take so long?” “My arms ache for the baby He promised.” These moments are the necessary ingredients of God changing us into His image. It’s the working out of my faith talked about in Phil. 2:9. Those times when we can’t believe God is doing anything. These are life moments of fiery spice. We are holding onto God’s words and believe Him. But in the waiting, our faith is not always lived out perfectly. The sugar sweet image tells only of the high points in our faith. The times we obeyed in faithfulness. There is a chapter in the New Testament like this. It’s called the roll call of the faithful heroes in the Bible. It’s Hebrews chapter 11. It is the chapter where our all of the foundational characters are remembered for their incredible faith. But, it also could be called the chapter of failures. With little exception, the heroes mentioned in this chapter also have stories of their disobedience or lack of faith in God recorded in the Old Testament; Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Rahab. The people held up as examples of their faith in God; God also had recorded times where they were not faithful. So where’s the disconnect between their failures and their successes in obedience to their faith in God? I think it is found in Hebrews 11:6 (NASB), “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarded of those who seek Him.” God rewards those who seek Him. Notice it says seek Him and not live perfectly. God’s blessings are not about our perfection. It’s about God’s faithfulness. It’s the lesson we learn from Abraham. He had faith in God but also had times he disobeyed God. Faith in the God who called and started a nation through him was a life lived with the end goal in mind. He tasted not just the sweetness of a moment but also the hard flavors of heat and salt. If we only had Hebrews 11, we would look at Abraham and praise him for his perfection but because we have Genesis we see the mercy of God and how great is His faithfulness. The purpose of Abraham’s life is to see and know the power and faithfulness of God. It’s why God had the writers of the Bible include people’s imperfections, so we would know we aren’t going to be able to be good enough for God.It’s also why I want to honest in my relationship with Jesus. If I only told of the times I had faith or made the right choice in tough circumstances, one will look at me and say, “her faith is so strong.” But my trajectory toward eternity with Jesus has and still has failures. I don’t want people to look at me because I can do nothing without Christ. I want people to look at me and say, “wow, her God is so faithful, merciful and loving.”

The Bible isn’t about God’s people’s goodness, it’s about the goodness of God toward His people.

I am so thankful for that. My soul’s desire is to seek Jesus with all that I am and in what I do, and say, and think. I want to taste the sugar sweetness of God. I want to hear His voice, praise Him in obedience and magnify His name. But my life isn’t all sugar. Sometimes it looks more like ick and mire. My life hasn’t been lived in perfection. I want to honest about those struggles because in my failures and questions, I learn about the grace of God and His faithfulness. I see His mercy in my life and experience His love. My prayer is to be like Abraham. He had failures. He had times of disobedience. But the totality of his life showed his faith in God and his obedience to Him grew and grew and in the end he is credited as faithful. To God be the glory.