Balance of flavours

You’ve probably experienced how frustrating it is, to try a new recipe only to find it doesn’t taste good.

When this happens, I set to work on trying to fix the flavours hoping that all the ingredients already invested into the dish, won’t be wasted. Nor my time.

I recently stumbled on The Collective Podcast with Charlotte Gambill.  Her teaching is full of practical biblical wisdom…

Elisha went back to Gilgal, where there was almost nothing to eat because the crops had failed. One day while the prophets who lived there were meeting with Elisha, he said to his servant, “Prepare a big pot of stew for these prophets.” One of them went out into the woods to gather some herbs. He found a wild vine and picked as much of its fruit as he could carry, but he didn’t know that the fruit was very sour. When he got back, he cut up the fruit and put it in the stew. The stew was served, and when the prophets started eating it, they shouted, “Elisha, this stew tastes terrible! We can’t eat it.” “Bring me some flour,” Elisha said. He sprinkled the flour in the stew and said, “Now serve it to them.” And the stew tasted fine.”

2 Kings 4:38-41 CEV
https://bible.com/bible/392/2ki.4.38-41.CEV

In the episode, titled From Frustration to Fulfilment, Charlotte refers to this scripture in 2 Kings 4.  She explained that sometimes in marriages, churches or organisations, things can become bitter because some sour element has gotten in – for example, a person, a situation, or an attitude that has changed the “taste”.

When something becomes sour it can seem like time to throw it out. To end the marriage or leave the church or find another job etc., but Charlotte said the problem with throwing away the marriage or the church (or the stew) is you’ve put a whole lot of yourself into it, to get it, where it is.

Do you really want to throw all that away? Maybe it just needs some “flour” (more or less of something) to make it right.

Photo by Jimmy Dean on Unsplash