Oatmeal Versus Stew

Text:  Psalm 90:16-17 - Let thy work appear unto Thy Servants and Thy glory unto Thy children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it.

If our worship or our faithfulness took on the characterization of a certain food, what would it be, or what would one rather it to be? Let's keep it uncomplicated, oatmeal or stew?   The scripture above informs us of how God beautifies us, with His own beauty, that we bring His beauty elsewhere.  Reflective splendor.  The more yielded we are, the more we look like Jesus.  The more surrendered we are to His Spirit, the more we look like Jesus.  The more bibled we are, the more Christ-like we are, the more beautiful to God, fragrant to God, pleasing to Him we are.

So, oatmeal or stew?

Settled on a spoon, these two may satisfy and even woo, though stew exceeds for what its got, ol' oatmeal mumbles having not.

Depending on the skillset brought in to fix it, stew can range from basic to extravagant, whereas oatmeal is simply flat.  The ingredients to a stew are myriad and wide-ranging, which when complimentary raises it experientially off the chart!  And regional influences can speak through a stew, where what is done can reflect those native tastes, Miami bringing it different from Philadelphia, bringing it different from Houston, bringing it different from Brooklyn, bringing it different from Los Angeles.  Oatmeal, however, done wherever, whether by Martha Stewart or your nephew in kindergarten will never differ but so much.  God can take complexity, such as comes of the few or the many in this world and do the wondrous! Consider this:

"And the King of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said 'When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them upon the stools; if it be a son then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.' BUT THE MIDWIVES FEARED GOD AND DID NOT AS THE KING OF EGYPT COMMANDED THEM, BUT SAVED THE MEN CHILDREN ALIVE...Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty."  Exodus 1:15-17, 20

Definitely not oatmeal here. Despite the drudgery of slavery, and the threat daily of being under the tyranny of Egypt, the beauty of the Lord, our God, has allowed His beauty to enter the obedient hope of these two named midwives in our Bible, to permit the life of Moses, whereby beauty looks like faithfulness, meekness, courage, goodness, love, and blessedness. The legacy of beauty once begun, continues beginning.  God be praised!

Now our platform is not a spoon, but certainly being called of God, equipped uniquely with histories loaded with grace and mercy, cares as well as consequences, with pauses as well as pursuits, and with overcoming moments as well as failures, we've got a special platform nonetheless. We bring the dreamt and the calculated; we bring the remembered, the thought of, and the done, through such as faith, intelligence, passion, and will. All of this being saturated with our personalities, the impact of others [major and minor], our genetics, and yes, the gifting of God throughout. Hereof the very temporal dances with the eternal. Surely, not oatmeal.
And with all of this, we've got an invitation to step into the mystery of the present day, daring to be real despite the world, the flesh, and the devil, stepping with the burden and the blessing of kin, friends, and strangers, always with the seasons upon us as seasoning -- salt, pepper, chili, lemongrass, garlic.

The moment at hand is our platform by which to declare ourselves -- who we are, and how far we've been brought.  And getting it right is worship. Getting it perfect is rare.God be praised!
Prayer:  May the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands for us. Amen.

(by Dr. McNeal Brockington)