Life is Like Baking a Cake

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Life is like baking a cake. Baking cakes requires exact measurements and procedures. Cookies and brownies are much more forgiving. But cakes? The recipe writer knows what she's doing. She put together the best to get the best. Follow her advice.

The best cakes include the best ingredients. Good cake flour, premium butter and oils, grade A milk and eggs, pure vanilla extract, and sugar. These are the things you have control over. Your choices and decisions. Your education. Your friends. Your lifestyle choices. The better you choose with these, the better your life will be. Choose less than the best and you'll still have a pretty good cake, but it might not turn out exactly right.

We are given talents and intelligence (some of us more than others!) and choices. Depending on how we handle these will determine how good our lives will turn out. We may still experience some measure of success, but if we don't make the best choices, our lives will not turn out exactly right. Exactly as God intended. He makes the best available, but if we choose something different, things won't turn out right. Did you know that there really is a difference between good flour and cheap flour? It determines the texture and lightness of the cake. Choose an inferior flour and your cake won't rise. Choose an inferior lifestyle, and YOU won't rise. Choose the best and you'll be your best.

Then there are those things over which we have little or no control. With baking; things like humidity, faulty appliances, and interruptions. With life; things like death, job loss, sickness. You can't really control these things, but you can make adjustments to accommodate them. The more knowledgeable about these possibilities and the better prepared you are for them, the more likely you'll be to overcome these little obstacles. If you aren't prepared, again the cake may be pretty good, but it won't turn out exactly right.

When hard times come--and they WILL come--it is best if you are prepared. Our preparedness makes getting over the obstacles of life much easier. If we think hard times won't come our way, we won't be prepared. And we will fail. If your oven bakes at a lower temperature, and you know that it does, you can make accommodations for your cake. If not, your cake will not be done and may be inedible. Yuck! Have you ever seen an underdone cake? It falls flat and turns dull and mushy. If the cake is over cooked, it is hard and may taste burnt. Like life, be ready to make adjustments. If adjustments aren't made, life may look, feel, and taste bad.

Then there's the recipe. It tells what all is needed and how to put all the ingredients together to get your best product. There is a recipe for life. It's called the Bible. It's not hard to read. It just takes time. And like a recipe, you need to read the entire thing through or you may miss something important. If you read the recipe and follow it, you'll get a great cake. If you read the Bible and follow it, your life will be exactly how it was intended.