The Greatest Chocolate Chip Cookies of All Time

I consider my friend Lisa to be my personal food expert. Seriously. She always knows where the best restaurants are, she's never short on wise food analogies that can change your life (my favorites include the frozen pizza and the golden grapes), and she most recently directed me to a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that puts all other cookie recipes to shame in my book. However, Jeremy and I have the hardest time following directions for some reason. We'll read them before hand, buy the necessary ingredients (or so we think) and go to town. Then halfway through making them we realize we forgot to get two bags of chocolate chips... or what exactly does golden brown mean? It never fails. But in those times when we are forced to think outside the page, so to speak, our best work is accomplished and low and behold we made the most delicious batch of cookies that either of us have ever experienced. Was it the mix of two kinds of chocolate or one of the countless other "mistakes" we had made that made them so amazing? Who knows, but you can bet we'll try our best to screw up another batch soon!

All of this reminds me of a quote a friend recently forwarded on to me; "Concretely, abandonment consists in seeing the will of God in all people, events, and circumstances present to you. If God tears up your beautiful game plan and leads you into a valley instead of onto a mountain top it's because He wants you to discover His plan, which is more beautiful than you can imagine. The response of trust is 'Thank You, Jesus', even if it's through clenched teeth." -Brennan Manning.

What would our lives look like as Christ-followers if we gave ourselves over to this kind of abandoned living... to this kind of surrendered life? What if we weren't so focussed on following our recipe for the day and opened our eyes to what the Beautiful Creator is already at work doing around us? I long to live with that kind of purpose! To not let the busy monotony of life distract me from enjoying the One my heart loves. Our greatest idea of living does not even compare to the sweet life He has in store for us.

"None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him'—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God."

-2 Corinthians 2:8-10

How He Loves Us...

Why is it so easy to forget about the love of God?

So often I view my relationship with Him as something I need to earn or do better... which leaves me exhausted and unmotivated to be with Him. It's as if a hard case forms around my heart and I can't hear Him or feel Him hear me, and the longer this goes on the thicker the case. The more I read the Word in these times, the more my "To Do..." list grows. How did I learn to read the Bible this way? As if it's something I need to accomplish rather than the beautiful love story I know it to be?

Praise God that He doesn't give up on us! I'm so thankful that He is the pursuer of my heart... and that He never stops calling me closer and closer to His. Yesterday morning I decided to get real about the messy place I've been lately... just being honest about how little I desired to be in the Word and that I didn't know what to read anyway. My amazing husband opened my Bible to Galatians and reminded me of how much Jesus desires to spend time with us... and how much I desire to walk with Him. I started to read... amazed that I could forget about His AMAZING GRACE!

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to DELIVER us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and FATHER, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen" ...it begins. And immediately I'm reminded of the great love of God and that this time i'm living in is evil, yet I am delivered from it! The lies I've been believing swarm through my mind, only this time instead of acknowledging them as truth I see the fallacy in them.

I keep reading, amazed by the love of God in Paul and how focussed he is on that love in the midst of a bunch of lies trying to keep him from being free! "...yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified." Duh! I cannot earn the love of God... I can never prove my love for Him... all I can do is have FAITH in the love of Christ Jesus for me and believe that I am justified and accepted by Him because of His sacrifice.

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Oh, how He loves us!!! ...and everything fades, my heart melts, stone turns to flesh once again, and I am filled to overflowing with the joy that comes from being so intimately loved by the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE!

Why is it so easy to forget about the love of God? It really doesn't matter... when we see His heart and get to know His character and love, "all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me!" - David Crowder Band

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."