I wish you joy, my dear friends!
Though Christmas is officially less than one week away, we are nearing the end of the third week of Advent (counting by Sundays), and the theme this week is JOY! And in the midst of joy, I begin to understand that sometimes what I really want isn’t what I think I want.
At Christmas, children are often asked what they want. It’s a time for gift-giving and secret Santa’s (where you receive a gift from someone, but have no idea who gave it to you), and wishing. But sometimes we ask for things we don’t really want, even though we may think we want them at the time.
The yummy coffee cake in the above picture is authentic “Blueberry Buckle.” If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s a buttery, dense cake topped with blueberry crumble, accented by a touch of cinnamon. Served warm, it is sooo good.
But when I was a kid, I didn’t know what it was. I first heard of blueberry buckle after I got my braces tightened, and was searching for something soft to eat. (I am fully convinced that braces are a torture device that should be banned. After years of pain and torn cheeks, my teeth didn’t even stay in position.)
I was tired of applesauce, and so I headed over to the baby food aisle. And there on the shelf was a glass jar of purple stuff called “blueberry buckle.” Back home, I judged it acceptably tasty, and wondered out loud about the name.
My mom told me that it was an “old-fashioned coffee cake that grandma used to make.” I tried to mingle the taste from the jar with my understanding of coffee cake, and it was a fail. Every coffee cake I had tried was dry and tasteless unless it had pie filling mixed in. So I decided that the jar of baby goo was the best possible representation of that flavor I knew as “blueberry buckle”. I wanted that, instead of the real thing.
Fast forward to this morning, and I pulled out my cookbook and discovered the recipe for blueberry buckle. I had some frozen blueberries in the freezer, and decided to give it a go. Butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, baking powder, salt. I stirred in some milk and spread it into a buttered pan. Next, I covered the top with blueberries, mixed up a flour/sugar/butter (cinnamon!) crumble, and shook that evenly over the blueberries and then put it into the oven.
I wish I could explain the wonderful smell that crept out of the oven and inhabited the house! Warm, cinnamon, blueberry sweetness made the whole house smell the way looking at the Christmas tree made me feel! It baked for over an hour, and when it was done, we let it cool a little and then each one of us had a piece, while sitting in a circle around the pellet stove.
As Beau served the cake, I remembered the whole baby food thing, and found that there was nothing in the whole delightful experience that was anything like eating the baby food. The puree was a similar color, but all the nuance was missing, and the flavor wasn’t even close.
The cake looked delicious! The real blueberries in the topping were still whole, and they flooded my mouth with warm juice when I took a bite. The edge of the white cake was golden and slightly crunchy, and the whole effect was that of a richly-flavored blueberry, cinnamon and butter dream. And I know that no matter how carefully someone might have described how delicious it is, I wouldn’t have really understood until I had tried it for myself.
I felt silly that for years I had despised the real thing, when it was so far superior to what I had been sold as “blueberry buckle.” (I highly recommend pureeing your own baby food, if you have a baby!) I missed out on all this yumminess for YEARS because I had believed the wrong thing. So while we were finishing our tea and gazing at the fire, I thought about why I had done that to myself.
1) I was desperate for comfort. Back then, I was in a lot of pain from my braces. I was hungry. I didn’t know how to cook and didn’t know how to begin. And I needed something to eat right away.
2) The baby food was different. I had been eating applesauce, but store-bought applesauce is so often tasteless. (Though I had nothing to compare it to back then.) The food was an unusual color. It was sweet and thick, so I felt it was more nutritious than applesauce.
3) I had a bad experience with other coffee cakes, so when I was told it was a “coffee cake,” I thought it was like the others. (Spoiler alert: All coffee cakes, when not burned or stale, can be delicious! Isn’t that the point of a coffee cake? To have something delicious with which to accompany the coffee?)
4) And I didn’t have access to a blueberry buckle coffee cake. I had never seen one at a bakery or in the store. And later on, after I had learned to bake, I was disinclined to try because of what I had already decided. And when I did try, the cake didn’t turn out well (probably because I believed it wouldn’t.)
But I had hope today when I baked, and wow, was it better! Blueberry Buckle truly deserves it’s legendary reputation.
So as I was thinking (it takes a lot longer to write what I was thinking than it takes for me to think it), I wondered if some of my other beliefs needed to be examined. Perhaps I had done the same thing in other areas.
I remembered a similar experience when I stopped reacting to the uncomfortable experiences in my past about religion and instead, truly looked to God. I found that He is the real thing. He wants us to really live, to be aware and awake to Him. He listens to us and answers us. He wants us to be in relationship with Him. He wants to delight us, and He wants us to pursue Him. Sometimes He hides himself, then suddenly reveals that He has been there all along.
We have been deceived about God. Legalists have put words into His mouth, words He never said. They have created rules that do not represent His teaching. They have forced people to kiss and told us that was love. It is right to hate such things.
That isn’t God. When Abraham asked God for His name, He replied, “I am.” God is authentic. He would never be fooled by a fake, nor would He want anyone to be fake. When we come to Him, He breaks the power of sin over our lives and renews our hearts. He gives us the desire and the power to do good. He works through us and calls us “ministers of His grace.” We become His ambassadors on this earth.
God breathed His breath into our lungs and gave to us His Spirit. He is our true Father. It is He that makes our hearts beat, and inspires us to love each other. He made our wonderful eyes and then created a world filled with beauty, form and color. He made soft fur and sensitive fingertips. He invented perfume and noses, taste buds and blueberry buckle!
Don’t be fooled by a look-alike! Demand to know the Truth, and to have the real thing. Don’t miss out on years of blessing because you believed a lie. (I was fooled, too.) God is a real person and He wants to know us. He is not something we put on over our life; rather, He waits to transform our hearts and lives from the inside. He wants a full relationship with us.
I praise Him for his patience with me! I was hurt and stubborn and angry. But He waited me out, and “wooed me with His loving kindness.” I should never have been angry at Him, for He was even more angry at the injustice than I was. What an incredible day it was when I realized that I was on God’s side!
But I still have some work to do. He will never let things slide. He will not leave us in our perverse state. As we can handle it, He shows us where we need to improve and then gives us the power to make those changes. He is gentle and loving and wants what is best for us.
He is coming to make things right, and in His absence, He has left us His Spirit. How cool is that? Are you taking advantage of your opportunity to walk with God’s Spirit? There is no greater gift, no greater calling, than to walk with our Creator. Can you picture Him standing there with His hand held out, waiting for you?
Now, as we get ready to celebrate His first coming, and His incarnation as Emmanuel, I pray that I won’t keep Him waiting. I pray that I will know the real from the fake. I pray for His love to flow through me to the others around me. So may God bless you and give you JOY this week!
Merry Christmas, my dear friends!
The Fullers Four 