When the holidays I start to think I can cook. I cannot.
In reality I have like 7 things I learned ages ago. I “cook” them and nourish my family solely by muscle memory. Sometimes I’ll get creative and rearrange the ingredients and give it a new name to switch up. “Spaghetti again?” “No way! It’s a different shaped noodle today AND it’s in a pan with cheese on top, so it’s completely different! Now it’s baked ziti! Ta-daaaa!”
I don’t think I’m fooling anyone.
It’s fun to play the “I might try to make that” game, though. As soon as it’s below 69 degrees, my scroll inevitably stops when someone pulls a steaming casserole dish from a hot oven, stirs a soup or fires up a griddle.
The other day I found a cook who reeled me in.
She was finishing up something in an iron skillet. For a second I thought I could smell it. She says, “measure with your heart” as she shakes on seasonings I recognize and mixes it together. All of this in a normal, regulation style kitchen with mismatched appliances and old-fashioned Formica countertops.
Measure with your HEART?!
Oh she is surely my people.
I don’t remember what she was making in that video, but that phrase stuck so hard that it’s a new life motto.
Throw out that formula-based thinking. Measure with your heart.
God says the same thing. He isn’t about teaching us to depend on a recipe.
Want a life that is deep, satisfying and joyful? If you do, then measure with your heart.
God isn’t holding back from you. He isn’t keeping all “the good stuff” stored up for someday. It’s all available, right now, right here.
He isn’t waiting. He’s already given you all you need.
As people, we often “give” from hearts that calculate the gift to make sure we can afford it. We wait to give until it’s a better time, until we have more to give, or when it’s in the budget. We ‘vet’ the recipient to be sure that the plan to spend the gift is worthwhile. We think we’ve done something when we drop $20 to help someone or hold a door open or tip more than average.
Thank God he didn’t use our kind of measure. When The Father, The Holy Spirit, and Jesus met to discuss the incarnation, the vote was unanimous.
They would measure with the heart, offering radical generosity to us, an undeserving people.
He reveals his love, drowning our lack in Jesus’ abundance. He offers his death for our life. His love is too big to begin to comprehend.
When he measured with his heart, he:
Sets us free.
Gave peace in turmoil.
Traded shame for restoration.
Then he allows us to choose our response: Will we measure by the math? Or by the heart?
“Give generously and generous gifts will be given back to you, shake down to make room for more. Abundant gifts will pour out upon you with such an overflowing measure that it will run over the top! The measurement of your generosity becomes the measurement of your return.” Luke 6:38
To 3-dot living,
Suzy.
