Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way (James 1:2-4 MSG).

Please take a moment to read this week’s entire passage! MSG

Please take a moment to read this week’s entire passage! NIV

I come from a long line of good cooks. Most of the memories I have of my grandma are of her in the kitchen, and I’ve heard the stories of the wonderful food prepared at her hands my whole life. My mom is an excellent cook, as her mother was before her. And me? If you’re looking for comfort food or dessert, I’m the cook for you! My daughter loves being in the kitchen, too, and since she was a little thing, she’s always been perched on a chair pushed up to the counter right next to me, so she could see and help make her favorite desserts. She was mostly interested in licking spoons and eating cookie dough, though, not so much the actual baking part of the process! Of course the mixing of the ingredients is only half the magic of baking–something a child doesn’t always understand. 

I was always mystified at how my mom could tell by smell alone when something needed to be taken out of the oven. She was never wrong! When I was still learning my way around the kitchen I under- and overcooked many things, as my daughter does now. I knew what the end product should look like, but often I was too impatient to let the oven do its work, or I became distracted and left whatever I was baking in the oven too long. 

Experienced cooks know their ingredients and recipes, and they know when it’s time to take something out of the oven. You can have all of the right ingredients in the right quantities and mix them together, but with too little heat from the oven it’s just a half-baked mess. 

We all make plans (recipes) for our lives. We follow the plan and gather the tools (ingredients) we need to get the end result we want, but sometimes life turns up the heat. The Baker knows that the heat has the power to turn our half-baked mess into the finest chocolate cake this side of the Mississippi, but it isn’t a comfortable process. James tells us to consider it a gift to be put to the test, because when life turns up the heat, our faith has the opportunity to grow. A cake taken out of the oven too soon won’t look or taste right, whereas a cake removed from the heat at just the right moment will be moist, fluffy, and oh so delicious! 

Just like a child doesn’t always understand the magic of baking, we don’t always understand why we face the difficult times we do. Sometimes life is just plain hard, but even in the face of adversity there’s room for us to mature in Him. Are you feeling the “heat” of life? Ask Him to help you appreciate the process today.