I baked a cake today, in preparation for a combined devotional-plus-Bible-object-lesson tomorrow morning.
(By the way: homemade chocolate cake is truly the breakfast of champions.)
Believe it or not, the process of making cake actually has a lot in common with God's upholding creation and working all things together for our good.
The common thread: even the yucky stuff (failure, rejection, loss, or raw eggs, raw flour, and vanilla extract) can be combined in a way that makes some beautiful.
Romans 8:28-29
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (NIV translation)
Moral of the Bible passage: God works all things together for the good of those whom he has called to his purpose (i.e. Christ's followers). And those whom he called, he intends to shape into the image of Christ, into his adopted children.
Romans 8:28 Object Lesson using Cake
There are a lot of things in our lives that we would perhaps rather not go through.
Any human being, having been around long enough, will face loss, failure, rejection, and other painful experiences.
But we are told that God works all things together for our good.
We can think of this a bit like making a cake. Most of the ingredients that go into a cake are not ingredients that we would want to eat by themselves (raw eggs, raw flour, vanilla extract, and the like). But when they are mixed together in the right proportions and given the right conditions, they can become something beautiful and delicious.
