Big Batch.

Looks good doesn't it? Smell em'? I enjoy when Lea is baking cookies. I like to get a nibble of cookie dough while the baking process is underway. Sometimes you go all out and make a big batch. Sometimes the occasion calls for more of a small batch.

Yesterday I read the words for September 12 in "New Morning Mercies" by Paul Tripp. I commend this resource to you. Each day's reading is dripping with gospel centered words of life and re-orienting. I need the gospel each day so this daily theme of grace and gospel is necessary. These words really stood out for me yesterday as I read and I want to pass them on to you today. "The things you say to you about yourself, about God, and about life are very, very important because they are formative of the way you act and react to the things that God places in your life. In those silent and private conversations that you have with you, you are remembering God's grace or you're not. When you remember God's grace you tell yourself you're not alone, that you're not left to the small batch of your own resources, and that you have been graced with what you need right here, right now to be what God has called you to be and to do what God has chosen for you to do."

YYYEEEEESSSSS!!!!!! Amidst all of the transitions of life, the turbulence of the world and the turbulence of our hearts, I am so magnetized to the small batch of my own resources to try to figure life out and to make it work for me. There are times when I am pretty successful at convincing myself that my batch of resources are pretty darn good. What a crock. My small batch of resources, on my own, are pathetic. As I'm getting older, being gut honest, my batch of resources aren't really that impressive and actually deadly when they have served me to make life happen on my own. Most often that has led me into a big mess of unhealthy living and selfish relating.

But what if my small batch of resources wasn't what all of this is riding on? What if it has nothing to do with my resources and everything to do with God's infinite resources. Shift from the batch of cookies above to a picture of Bilbo Baggins in the gold room with gold coins as far as the eye can see. Unlimited resources. Never ending. God is the big batch. We have been graced with the Big Batch of everything we need right here, right now. It's stunning that my pathetic, small batch could still be so alluring, but it is. This is what the gospel is for. It tells us that there's more. There is always more in Jesus.

Small batch of my own resources. Biggest Batch ever of the unlimited, heavenly riches of the Almighty and Intimate God. Colliding within you and me today. Really? Really. We are the treasure room housing this daily batch.

Here's to the big batch of God's heart for His children. That's you if you are in relationship with Him. What a wonder that God is cultivating HIS resources within you and I. That is real. That is staggering.

There's more.