Proper Ingredients Are Needed
Who doesn’t like a warm and freshly baked blueberry muffin? Spread a small amount of butter on these 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 acting 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 warm muffins more suited for feeding the ducks than for enjoying them with a good cup of coffee or nice dessert wine, say a vintage Port or Sherry or Muscat. Personally, I prefer dessert wine over coffee. Its sweetness 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 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 were for and not for who or what we were against. We wanted to be known for who we loved, which was hopefully everyone, even our “enemies.” I believe that deep and meaningful 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 ingredients 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 timeless 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 absolutely necessary in order to ensure the muffins are 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 an anecdote that I saw 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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