How to simmer a stew

Get yourself a pot.  Pour in tight margins at work, bad sleep patterns, and too little time in the Word.  Put yourself some unmet expectations in along with old struggles you’ve dealt with in the past.  Stir until you see it bubbling.  Reduce heat and cover, letting the old beliefs rise to the surface.  Keep the lid on, letting the old beliefs thicken until they form an unrecognizable lump of discontentment and peevishness. 

I’m pretty good at making stews (literally and figuratively).  But I’d like to get better at making soup.  I just looked up the difference between the two.  While a stew has to do with simmering  and cooking something down… envision a thick chunky bowl where the “juice” has become thickened by the potatoes or other starches… a soup has more of a broth base.  It’s perhaps clearer, the flavors more distinct, the components more identifiable. 

Applying the spiritual ideas from the above stew, I would say a soup would have a clarity, a simplicity, and a comfort to it.  If I were to alter the way I’m cooking, I would start with a fresh base of rest and ease (sleep, at least an attempt at healthy margins, pursuit of relationships).  To this I would add a generous supply of TRUTH that comes from time in the Word.  When I add the truth in, it would have a natural result of causing the old beliefs to rise to the surface.  You want to skim those off because they can have a bitter affect on the taste of your soup.  Worship through personal prayer and time with others would be the perfect accompaniment to this soup.

While there are definite gaps in my ponderings about spiritual soups and stews :), I write about them fresh off of making myself a stew.  The figurative kind unfortunately.  For the last 4 or 5 days, I’ve really wrestled with the Lord re: unmet expectations and old beliefs from the past.  You know, the kind that you have done good work on, and have dealt with them as much as you could at the time… yet they pop up unexpectedly in pursuit of sabotage to your peace and hope in Jesus. 

It has taken me a few days,  but I am skimming the bitter stuff off the top.  I don’t have answers for my aches and longings, at least not the emotionally satisfying ones that I want.  But I do know that pandering to them apart from Truth will only leave me discontent and bitter… and I want nothing to do with bitterness!  I want to be the woman that grace and truth flow through, bringing sweet encouragement to those that are in close proximity.  I want to create space in my life for God to sweeten my heart and my hopes toward Him.

I choose to make a soup.  Care to join me for a bowl?