Missing Ingredient

Pies are my specialty. The other day I had a hankering for custard pie. Since my husband doesn’t care much for that, I decided to make it more interesting by making a pumpkin custard pie. I found what looked like a good recipe online and launched the experiment (new kind of crust and all).

The smell wafting from the oven was cinnamony good. But when it set up and I pulled it out, it looked strange. I set it on the counter to cool, and lo and behold, there sat the can of pumpkin. How could I have forgotten that?

Well, we tried a piece. It was edible. Spiced up custard is not too bad, but the consistency wasn’t right. I guess the crumb crust had seeped into the custard, and it was strange. And the main ingredient was missing. So the rest of the pie went into the garbage.

It made me think of how it’s possible for important components to be omitted from our lives. According to Galatians 5:22 & 23, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” If the Spirit of God is in us, those are the qualities that should be obvious to those around us.

We had an interesting discussion with our family about this passage recently. We asked each other which of these ingredients of a Spirit filled life were easy for us to display, and which ones were difficult. None of them should be missing. Especially the one at the top of the list: love. I Corinthians 13 tells us that without love we are nothing. There might be some good flavors there, but the consistency is off. Barely edible. Only worthy of the garbage can.

Let’s do a little self examination. If we have all of the right ingredients, if we’ve followed the recipe from the Word of God, our lives should have the right aroma, the right consistency, and the right taste. That isn’t possible if we omit the main ingredient.

How do each of us measure up today? Is there something missing? Something to trust God for? Everything in the right proportion? When people get a taste of us, is it delicious in every way?