A Piece Of Cake

I just finished baking a cake.
Not a cake that is covered with icing.
Not even a layer cake.
It is the Gallagher birthday and special occasion cake.

It became the Gallagher cake when my daughter was in a high chair.
It was right around the first birthday of my first daughter.
A cake must be made, but what kind?
We are not big “cake people.”

I love to bake from scratch, as they say.
However, brownies, breads, and muffins, were the desserts I usually served.
This was special.
You are only have your first birthday, once.

We always loved ice cream.
Perhaps an ice cream cake.
I make my own Oreo crust and filled it with vanilla ice cream.
I decorated the top with chocolate.

Success.
Thank goodness it only had one candle.
The cake would have melted before it got to the table.
My daughter loved her ice cream cake as the family pictures can attest.

Soon after her birthday, our local newspaper began a recipe column in the food section.
As I glanced at the recipes, I saw it.
A cake, with no icing and our favorite ingredient.
Chocolate.

I made the cake that night and my husband and daughter loved it.
Four more children came along and each birthday, that was their birthday cake.
All except one son who doesn’t enjoy cake at all.
I make him his favorite dessert, which is “marbles,” but that is another story.

I began to make the cake for special occasions and picnics.
It became the “Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus” cake when my children were little.
Soon, friends asked me to bring the cake if we went to their house for dinner.
One friend moved to London with her family and brought the recipe with her.

I received a letter from her telling me that “Gina’s cake” was a big hit in London.
I laughed.
It wasn’t Gina’s cake.
It was a recipe in a newspaper all those years ago.

The recipe somehow became associated with me.
It is a sour cream chocolate chip cake.
It is layered with chocolate chips and cinnamon sugar.
The house smells positively delicious as the cake is baking.

If I forgot even one ingredient, the cake would not taste the same.
Baking powder and baking soda each have a different job to do.
Baking powder allows the dough to puff or rise.
Baking soda allows the dough to spread.

Even forgetting one teaspoon of either can drastically alter the recipe.
Our famous cake calls for chocolate chips to be placed on each layer.
I have mistakenly mixed them in when I was trying to do too much at one time.
It tastes the same but it doesn’t look the same.

It also made it harder to do the impossible feat.
Each of my children was able to expertly dissect their piece of cake.
Around 12 months, a child develops the pincer grip.
They are able to hold objects between their thumb and index finger.

Finger foods became an important way for them to feed themselves.
Food was cut up into small and manageable pieces.
The children were able to pick out every chocolate chip in their piece of cake.
The square piece of cake was left on the plate but every chip was expertly removed.

They quickly learned that they were to eat the whole piece, not just the chocolate.
They wanted to take out the parts they liked to eat.
They wanted to leave the parts that they didn’t like to eat.
Selective eating.

We are the same.
God knows that.

“You must speak My words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.” Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll, which He unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe.  And He said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it and it tasted sweet as honey in my mouth.
(Ezekiel 2:7-10 and 3:1-3)

Many of us are like a child dissecting a piece of cake.
Pulling out all the good, tasty things and leaving the rest.
We do that with God’s Word.
We dissect God’s Word to make it more palatable to our taste.

But our taste has nothing to do with it.
God expects his people to ingest all of His Word.
Consume every morsel.
We fear that it will be sour to us, offensive, and unappetizing.

It might.

Sometimes the most nutritional food may not be the best tasting.
It may be a bit bland.
It is not gooey and chewy and filled with sugar, tasting great for about a minute.
Then leaving you with insatiable hunger right after you finish eating.

Nothing satisfies our spiritual hunger like the Word of God.
God expected the prophet Ezekiel to ingest His Word first before he preached it.
The Word tasted sweet to Ezekiel.
Ezekiel consumed it and then was able to feed others.

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. (Psalm 34:8)

We have a spiritual pincer grip.
We pick up God’s Word between out thumb and index finger and hold it in our hand.
We should be mature enough to feed ourselves, not selectively, but totally.
Our hunger is satisfied in God’s Word alone.