the rise

I’ve been baking bread. And it’s not just any old bread, it’s sourdough. Beautiful, crusty, artisan sourdough. I feed it and tend it and nurture it and stretch it and wrap it up in a little blankey, and then send it into the hot oven for its final destiny. I’m smitten with the whole process.

The hardest part is the waiting. You mix it up and wait. Then you add a few things and mix it up again and wait. Then then you stretch it out and tuck it back in and wait. After you do that four times, you give it a bulk rise, which is just a technical bakers term for waiting a very long time. That’s not the end of the waiting either. You have another wait after it goes into the pan, and then, of course the bake time. After that, surprise surprise, you have to wait while it cools for a full hour. It’s a lot of hurry up and wait, but man, oh man, is it worth it! 

I’ve been living my whole life inside the lines of this process, and I’ve never been able to articulate it until this very day. We live in this crazy world where everything is instant, and there’s very little waiting. But God’s ways are infinitely “wait” and “see”. And then after all that waiting He sends you into a fire you don’t see coming, but as you endure, waiting for the end of it, you rise and come into your destiny. You don’t even realize it’s happening until you’re out of the fire and springs of living water bubble up from within you. Even then you may be waiting on the cooling rack for another season, but the time will come for you to do what God has designed you to do. 

Wait. And see. It is SO worth it. The Lord is good, and He will be faithful to complete the work that He has begun in you.