God's Churning

Homemade ice cream is a real summer treat!  Drive by our house any given late afternoon or evening, and you just might hear our freezer going!  Before ice cream freezers and store-bought cartons, Daddy Bill (my grandfather) stirred together milk, sugar, and vanilla then froze it in a metal ice tray.  As a young girl, I anticipated that homespun delicacy for bedtime snack.  What a precious memory!

 

God is churning us day-by-day into His work-of-art.  It's the mix and churning of joys and sorrows, days of struggle and ease that bring the delicacy of His Holy Character in us.  I guess we feel some [sort of] release when we scream, kick, pout, and whine but in-the-end it didn’t change a thing!  Through the psalmist, God said, "My son, give Me thine heart ... " (Psalm 23:26).   You see, that’s what He wants most!  “Giving” Him our heart instead of the screaming, kicking, pouting, and whining is the self-sacrifice God desires – a broken, contrite, surrendered heart.  Like my Daddy Bill and my Mom, my ice cream is that simple milk-sugar-vanilla mixture – that’s how we’ve come to love it (with chocolate syrup, of course).  God’s recipe for righteousness is perfect, and it’s best when we joyfully surrender to Him then let Him do His churning!