Adding the Proper Ingredients
Who doesn’t like a warm and freshly baked blueberry muffin? Spread a small amount of butter onto these warm goodies, and oh so good! To make these delicious muffins from scratch you need the basics – flour, sugar, salt, eggs, butter, milk, blueberries, maybe some vanilla extract, and a small amount of another very important ingredient, baking powder. Without the baking powder to act as a leavening agent, which produces carbon dioxide gas during baking, trapping the bubbles in the batter and causing it to rise, the muffins will be dense and not the delicious treat you had hoped for.
Do you know the difference between baking powder and baking soda? Both are leavening agents with the primary difference being baking powder already contains the acid needed to create the carbon dioxide whereas baking soda needs another acidic ingredient (commonly vinegar, lemon juice, brown sugar, yogurt, buttermilk, honey) to create the rising reaction.
You can argue as to which ingredient is most important. But, in reality, all of these ingredients are of equal importance, forgetting one of them, or adding the wrong amount, leaves the muffins more suited for feeding the ducks than for enjoying them a good cup of coffee with a nice dessert wine, say a vintage Port or Sherry or Muscat (Moscato). Personally, I prefer wine over the coffee, the sweetness of the wine will pairs very nicely with the acidic blueberries!
Meaningful relationships, on the other hand, while also having several key ingredients, are firmly based upon one primary ingredient – love. Yes, in a relationship you need among other things such as respect, honesty, trust, and communication, but without love being first and foremost, none of those ingredients work too well, if at all.
I deeply value the importance of relationships and truly believe that love covers over any and all differences we have with other people. The Bible agrees; check out Proverbs 10:12 or 1 Peter 4:8. In the church my wife and I planted when we lived in North Carolina, we wanted to be known for who we are for and not for what we are against. We wanted to be known for who we loved, which was hopefully everyone, even our “enemies.” I believe that those relationships can best be nurtured and developed using the acronym LACE, with “L” representing Love. Love is the foundation upon which the other three letters stand. And in case you are wondering, the other three are Accountability, Challenge, Encourage.
You are probably very familiar with the “Love Passage” from 1 Corinthians 13, often read at weddings. This is so much more than just good advice for a bride and groom; it is great life wisdom! Even if you have heard it a thousand times, I encourage you to take a few minutes and read it again, 1 Corinthians 13:4-13. It begins with “Love is patient, love is kind” and ends with this endless truth, “And now these three things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Planted smack dab in the middle of these bookends is this – “Love never fails.”
So, unlike baking blueberry muffins, where the proper amount of each ingredient is needed in order to ensure it is edible, in relationships you can never add too much love. Just imagine how much better this world would be if we filled it with more love and less hatred. I will end with this anecdote that I read in a farmer’s almanac – A wise physician once said, “The best medicine for humans is love.” His patient asked, “What if it doesn’t work?” The doc smiled and replied, “Increase the dose.”
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