Cookies

Waiting is boring.

Preparing is dull.

Quite often I fancy homemade cookies, but going through the actual process of getting out all the ingredients, measuring them, re-measuring them because I get confused in my conversion from English grams to American cups, getting out the (beloved) chrome Kitchen Aid mixer, following the recipe, dividing up the dough…blah blah blah, I’m bored, and now very much hungry, just thinking about doing all that effort and all that work.

All that preparation.

We just want the cookies. The main event. The end product.

I had a good crying session Sunday night with my beautiful & faithful friend Kelli McFarlane.

I was pouring out my heart over current situations and feeling like I’m in this random time of waiting for who knows what, and not understanding so many things. I know that this is the right path, yet I wonder and worry about so much. Am I really being effective?! What difference am I making?! And then Kelli did what she does better than most people I know.

She asked me an awkward question:

“Jesus spent only 3 years in recorded Bible work. What was he doing for the rest of the time? Was he wasting it?”

Silly Kelli, of course Jesus didn’t waste his time – He’s the son of God!! He would have got a right good spanking from His Dad for wasting time!!

But it got me thinking: What on earth was he doing for the first 30 years?!

So Monday morning I studied the structure of Jesus’ life.

1 day old: Born to a virgin, in a manger; random shepherds came to worship.

8 days old: Circumsised. Guess that was a rough day.

41 days old: Brought to the temple in Jerusalem to be presented; a sacrifice of two turtle doves/pigeons, made

12 years old: Feast of Passover, Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem, spending three days in the temple, sitting in the midst of teachers, both listening to them and asking questions. All who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.

Aged 30: Jesus began His ministry, after being baptized by John. The rest of those details are heavily recorded.

Aged 30-33: His “ministry” time. These details are heavily recorded.

What was he doing between 41 days old and 12 years old?!

(besides getting potty trained?)

What was he doing between 12 years old and 30 years old?!

(besides that awkward pubescent smelly phase?)

Looking at the few verses that commentate on this they say:

“And the Child grew and became strong in Spirit, filled with wisdom […] And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men”

That’s a long time spent on growing strong, and increasing in wisdom, but obviously with the amazing things that Jesus did aged 30-33, that time was important. It had benefit. It had worth.

It was essential.

When Steve did his half-marathon, he trained for at least an hour, 3-4 times a week, for several months. His race lasted just over 2 hours.

At the end of the race he got a medal and the sense of pride of achievement, but the lesson wasn’t in the event.

It was in the hours of preparation. That’s where he learnt discipline, hard work, focus, sacrifice, commitment.

The race day was simply the painful culmination of it all.

University isn’t just about a degree, a piece of paper with your name and a grade.

Though I highly advocate further education and the value of a degree, university is a place where you learn social skills, independence, time management, discover who you really are, work out what you want from life, what you have to offer the world and learn from different teachers and different people from different backgrounds.

Father God puts us through times of preparation for a reason.

As I was worshipping God by singing songs tonight, He dropped in my head all my single girl friends.

He said: ‘I am preparing them for marriage’

There are things you are learning now, which will make you a better wife at the start of your marriage then people who get married 5, 7, 10 years before you. You will be better prepared at running a household, managing finances, looking after yourself and others because of your time spent in advance.

Maybe you’re unemployed, or stuck in an in-between temp job trying to work out what the next step is.

Maybe you feel like the country and role you have right now is the one you are supposed to be in, but you know there is something more coming up.

Maybe you have just come out of a long-term relationship, and are wondering why you had to endure that heartache.

In this in-between phase, there are things to be learnt, skills to be honed, adventures to have, wisdom and strength to gain that will make our main event, our race day, our marriage all the better because we were prepared.

It’s hard, because all we want is the cookie. 

But the cookie tastes so much sweeter when you know the effort that you put in to get there.

The ones brought straight from the store never taste as good.