The Truth According to Cookies

 

                                     

It was late. While I was quickly fading from a day filled with energetic kids, my husband was just

coming to life! For some reason, the time most people are going to bed, he gets a second wind. I, on the

other hand, have developed a striking resemblance to a week-old helium balloon. He watches TV,

works in his shop, runs to the store for late night snacks and sometimes he cooks. Most often he bakes

cookies. I should be grateful. If anyone is willing to place homemade cookies in this house, gratitude

should be present. I am ashamed, but I have a hard time being thankful for his cookies. Not because he

waits until I can’t keep my eyes open to bake them or leaves me countless untidy bowls and crunchy

cookie sheets as reminders of his late-night culinary doings, I have a difficult time with thankfulness for

this endeavor for the simple reason that the cookies are ALWAYS oatmeal. I do not like oatmeal

cookies. Breakfast cereal doubling as a dessert? I just don’t get it!

One evening as his late-night routine of cookie making commenced, I decided to take the leap, tell him how I felt about his oatmeal cookies, but I caught myself and settled for a gentle reminder of what I saw as the obvious. “You know, there are other kinds of cookies besides oatmeal. Right?” I said trying to consciously keep my tone in check. “What about chocolate chip?” I suggested.  He thought for a minute, but I could tell he was not willing to part with his oats and would continue to make them every time he made the cookies. I was just about to make a last-ditch effort to branch out, to be a little bolder with my suggestion to try something new when I heard him say, rather definitely, “I will make both.” He seemed rather proud of his solution; I was skeptical. His intentions no matter how noble they were, would be out the window after he ate several of his plate-sized oatmeal beloveds. The outcome of this was one thing and one thing only. In a matter of minutes, he would be out cold on the couch in a sugar-induced coma. It was not my first trip to the bakery. I had seen it a million times before. It was late, I was exhausted, so I nodded trying to show my vote of confidence in his plan. Then I turned around, secretly rolled my eyes knowing exactly where this was going and went to bed.
The next morning, not anticipating finding cookies to my liking, I was a little curious as to what I would find in the kitchen. To my surprise, there were two platters of cookies – one oatmeal and one – choc… I took a second glance. Noticing that the top cookie on the plate had only one chip, something was not quite right. Maybe this was a fluke I reasoned. After all, everyone knows real chocolate chip cookies have more chips than cookie. Carefully, I looked through all the cookies on the platter. With each inspection, I grew more and more suspicious. The evidence was the chips themselves or rather the absence of chips in each cookie. This had not been a mistake I reasoned. Rather, it was an intentional ploy to obstruct the proper making of chocolate chip cookies!  So where were the chips?  I scanned the countertops. The usual mixing bowls complete with dough-covered spoons now hardened like cement were in the sink. The counter was filled with traces of cookie mix dust and the forgotten crumbs along with the now cooled cookie sheets led my eyes to the far corner of the counter. It was there I saw a small unassuming metal bowl carefully covered with a clean dish cloth. I no longer had suspicions: I had predictions. Better yet, I was certain I had proof! Inside that bowl, I was confident in what I would find. Carefully I lifted the cloth, and there they were hundreds of them! Beautiful, yummy, perfectly shaped, semi-sweet chocolate chips that never made it to their destination.  It was at this moment all his quirky bents to dilute things flashed before my eyes. For starters, I frequently found our shampoo bottle half filled with water, sweet tea in the fridge diluted to barely resembled the color of tea at all and on more than one occasion I had poured water with just a hint of honey mustard dressing over my salad.   Today though, he had gone one step too far. Who in their right mind sifts all the chips out of the cookie mix and bakes them with one chip? “This is wrong, I said under my breath, clearly wrong on so many levels!” Yet, somehow, I knew this obsession or was it a compulsion with diluting things was probably never going to end. For some reason, he could not see the dilution of certain household items as detrimental to their use or to my enjoyment as in the case of the chocolate chips. “Watering down” substances for him were a means of conservation but in the process, these altered substances were no longer reliable or effective.  Though it was annoying, it was not fatal, so I took a deep breath and resolved to buy an extra bottle of shampoo, make my own pot of tea and explore some new types of dressing since oatmeal, and honey mustard were here to stay!

I thought about the minor household gaffe that occurs because of my husband’s quirkiness and in the real scheme of what is important these nuisances are insignificant. Still, there are some things that if used at half strength could have devastating effects for the user. Doug Batchelor, Senior Pastor of Granite Bay Church in California and the founder of Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism aired a broadcast entitled “The Dangers of a Diluted Gospel” in which he said there are some things that just can’t be diluted.
“What could be more deadly than diluted cancer medication? Maybe placebo pills for a cardiac patient. Or diluted insulin for a diabetic. The deadliest medicine is a watered-down gospel—because the tragic results are eternal.” With all the falsehood that bombards our minds through many media pathways, we can be encouraged in knowing that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus can still be found pure and unchanged in the scripture. The Apostle Paul in Galatians 1: 6-8 warns the believers in Galatia to not fall for other gospels. What about us? Is it possible that we too are influenced by “other gospels” to the point we are becoming comfortable with additions and deletions to the truth?  We must identify areas and or influences that water down God’s message. We must think about what we are embracing as truth, and filter that which can’t stand through the lens of scripture. We must ask ourselves, how pure is the message we are sharing? The Gospel of Christ has the power to extinguish eternal death and ignite the hope of eternal life in those we meet. It not only has the power but the potential to give someone a brand-new eternal start! Therefore, there is no room for the true message of the Gospel to be laced with a customized, personal gospel.

Dear Father,

This Gospel, this good news that I have is not mine to secretly harbor. Help me to remember I am holding the true Hope of the world.

Amen

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-which is really no gospel at all…

Galatians 1: 6-7a