when things don't look right.
My mom makes the best homemade chocolate chip cookies I have ever had. To this day, they are ranked in the top spot. Even though I can’t eat them anymore because my body no longer responds well to some of the key ingredients she uses, I still consider them my absolute favorite cookie. But honestly, I think it has a lot to do with how she’d let my siblings and me help her make them when we were little.
We’d pull out the metal step stool that we kept tucked between the wall and the stove, stand tall at the counter, and my mom would patiently show us how to measure and add each ingredient. She’d tell us when it didn’t really matter how you added the ingredients to the bowl, and when it really did matter. She taught us all the tricks. And then, just before we’d spoon the dough onto cookie sheets, she’d let us have a “finger scoop” of dough, which was always the best part. The taste test. Looking back, I think perhaps it was the whole experience of it – the process, the raw dough, the freshly baked cookies – that makes me love these cookies that much more.
One time, when my siblings and I were older and wanted cookies, we asked my mom to bake them with us. It’s not that we couldn’t do it by ourselves by that point, but no one does it like mom does – you know? She always said yes whenever she could, but this one time, she couldn’t. She had work to do in the other room, but she encouraged us that we could do it ourselves – that we didn’t actually need her and the cookies would be just as good. I’m pretty sure we debated over it for a minute before deciding we craved cookies enough to make them ourselves.
We pulled out that huge, orange Tupperware bowl and mixed all the ingredients together the way we knew how, but the dough didn’t end up looking quite right to us. We didn’t understand it. Why does it look like that? Did we mess something up? Naturally, we called my mom into the kitchen. “Is this right?” we asked. “It doesn’t look right to us.”
After assessing the situation, asking questions about the ingredients and the order in which we’d added them, my mom shrugged her shoulders. “It looks good to me,” she said. Then she took the spoon and stirred the dough with her own hand before confirming, again, that it was good – that there wasn’t any reason she thought our cookies wouldn’t turn out right.
When we looked again, suddenly the dough looked good to us too. I remember this moment so specifically because it felt like such confirmation that her hand contained the magic touch. That only she makes the best cookies. But now I wonder if it was just seeing her hand and hearing her approval that shifted our lens to see it the way she saw it. The dough didn’t look quite right to us and we doubted it was good – until we saw her hand on it, until she said it was good.
It feels like that with God sometimes too. As I’ve been reading scripture, learning how to hear the voice of God in my own life, and practicing taking Him at His word, I often find myself standing in the midst of a situation that looks …not quite like what He said. Like when scripture says that God knows everything that we need and to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33) – and I thought I was seeking His kingdom first, but I still don’t have rent money on the first of the month. Or when I make a choice based on what I thought I heard Him say, and it doesn’t seem to be panning out all that well.
The thing about taking God at His word is that it often looks different than you think it will – than you think it should. It takes boldness to step out in faith, and to see something other than pure success a few steps in feels pretty confusing. For me, I start to wonder if I’m doing it wrong. If God was in the other room when I accidentally did too much or too little, and now things won’t turn out that great. I often feel like I’m calling Him into the room to ask, “Is this right? This doesn’t look right.”
But the thing is, God never leaves me for anything in another room. He might be silent as He watches me operate in faith, but He hasn’t left. He’s always been there. He knows all the details. And what I’m actually doing when I turn to Him for answers is acknowledging His presence.
When I remember God is with me, I don’t have to worry that I don’t know what I’m doing or that I messed it up somehow – He’s got it covered. Scripture says “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). That doesn’t actually mean that He works with all things to shape them into something good eventually. He doesn’t come in after we’ve done our part and then transform it into something good. It means in all things, in real time. And when things don’t look good, it’s not that He is absent – it’s that He is working. He hasn’t finished yet.
Of course, we can sometimes go rogue with the ingredients, the choices we make, or the way we go about things, but for “those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose,” God’s word promises that none of it happens without Him knowing, without Him having His hand on it. I go rogue more often than I’d like to admit. I get distracted by the steps or what I see unfolding that doesn’t look quite right, but I’m getting better at recognizing it sooner and shifting my focus back to Him. Because, the truth is, God is not just there to reassure us we’re on the right track, He’s there to help us and give us the faith, power, and authority we need to keep going.
The thing that gets me is that, like the cookie dough, my situation can remain exactly the same, but because I’ve focused my attention on God instead of my situation, I’m able to see through a new lens of fresh hope. I can be confident and joyful and even celebrate because even though I can’t see the outcome yet, I know it will be good. I have His word and His hand. And, you know? Perhaps this whole process is what will make me love what’s to come that much more.