
I was recently in conversation with a cook whose culinary skills I especially respect.
She told me about a frosting recipe she had developed of which she was especially
proud. She said it was a butter cream frosting that didn’t taste anything like butter
cream.
Before I could ask the obvious question she answered it. “Most people,” my culinary
inclined friend commented, don’t really like butter cream frosting. They expect it and it’s
sweet, so they eat it, but they really don’t like it.” Now before I start a frosting war, let
me say that at a personal level I am not a big fan of frosting. Whether at home or in the
café, if I can get to a dessert before it’s frosted, that’s a win for me. Our baker in the
café is even kind enough, on occasion, to set a cookie or two aside for me before it’s
ruined by the stuff.
But I know and appreciate that a lot of people really do like frosting. For many it’s the
best part of whatever is being offered. Or so they say.
Which brings me to my point. Do my frosting loving friends really like frosting? Do they
really like the super sweet, overpowering sweetness, tongue coating heaviness of the
stuff. Or do they just think they like it because they are supposed to like it. “Everybody
loves frosting, right?” Frankly it takes a good bit of courage to look a baker in the eye
and say, “hold the frosting.” It does help however to add, “that lovely, light, delicious,
sugar cookie is absolutely perfect, just the away you baked it,” before they drive you
from their presence.
But the simple truth is that we often want something because we think we should, or
because everybody else appears to like it and want it.
And this is where a light hearted point turns serious.
Sin, the things that tempt us, often are not really all that attractive. Many times a
moment of reflection will tell us so.
We often want things that not only aren’t good for us, that are downright harmful to us,
and in truth aren’t even all that attractive. A step back and a moment of thought will tell
us, “that thing that you desire, you really don’t even want.” This is especially true when
we consider the consequences of our actions. When we add that to the deal the object
of our affection becomes something we immediately know to steer clear of. Yet we
pursue these things anyway.
That’s how it is with sin. Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is more deceitful than all else. And
is desperately sick; Who can understand it?”
Why do I pursue things that I know are harmful, don’t offer any real satisfaction, and
carry a cost I really don’t want to pay? Simply put, my heart is sick. It is so easily
deceived. It is so gullible.
Which is why we turn to Christ, and to His word. It is why we look to good, Godly
counsel, and why we need the powerful presence of the Spirit of God in our lives.
Wisdom so often consists in asking for help when we need it.
Proverbs 19.10 tells us, “Listen to counsel and accept discipline, That you may be wise
the rest of your days.” We err when we think that wisdom is found is the accumulation
of knowledge. In truth it is found in the “seeking of counsel.” The wise aren’t those who
sought counsel in the past and now no longer need it, but rather those who seek Godly
counsel daily.
I pray that each of us, when drawn to that which is sin, to that which we know full well
will not satisfy us nor fashion greater character in us, will seek the counsel of God’s
Spirit, His Word, and His servants the saints.
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