It was an early Saturday morning and I was feeling especially creative. Rather chef-like.
For some crazy reason I got the idea that I should make breakfast for everyone in the house. If you’ve heard anything about my legendary culinary skills then you will understand that this was a very bad idea.
Not wanting to be overly ambitious, I decided on making pancakes. Simple pancakes. I grabbed one of my wife’s cookbooks and opened to the cake section. It had a picture of a stack of hotcakes along with an easy-to-follow recipe. Perfect.
I found a large bowl and started adding in the ingredients.
Water…check! Flour…check! Eggs…check!
I then came to the point where I needed to add about a tablespoon of baking soda. Soda? I must have searched the kitchen drawers for about ten minutes looking for something called baking soda. No luck. I thought to myself, It’s only a little baking soda. And less than a spoonful at that. Surely it won’t matter if I leave it out all together. And so I did.
By the time I was finished adding in all the ingredients, I had left out the baking soda and substituted a couple of other ingredients for things easier to find in our pantry.
So far so good.
As soon as I poured the batter onto the griddle, however, I knew something was wrong. My pancakes were paper-thin and were actually shiny. Shiny?
My wife awoke from all the noxious fumes coming from the kitchen and actually laughed at my creation when she saw what I was doing.
“Why are they so flat…and shiny?” she asked. I explained to her what I had done. She then proceeded to grab her camera and started taking pictures. Her laughter awoke all our children and, after seeing their father’s attempt at making breakfast, said, “We’re not eating those. They look poisonous!”
Undeterred by all the mockery, I vowed to personally eat the pancakes in order to demonstrate just how tasty they were. Unfortunately, they looked a lot better than they actually tasted. No amount of maple syrup would help, either. I think I forced down two small bites before chucking it all into the trash.
That morning I learned two important life-lessons. The first lesson is that it is easier (and safer) just to go out and buy a dozen donuts for breakfast. The second lesson I learned is that quite often it is the seemingly insignificant things in life that end up being the most important in the end.
This is true, both in making breakfast and in figuring out God’s will for your life.
In other words, why in the world would God ever reveal His plan for our lives if we leave out important bits of daily living, such as plain old obedience to His revealed will (i.e. The Great Commission).
Hmm, I wonder.
Photo credit: Stéfan (Creative Commons)
Shiny? What made them shiny?
Not sure. I think it was the lack of baking soda that made them so thin and, therefore, so shiny.
what did you use as replacement? 🙂