Lesson from a friendship bread- waiting.

Have you ever made a friendship bread? It is an old Amish recipe that uses a sourdough starter and takes 10 days to prepare. Most of the 10 days, the fermenting bread batter sits on your kitchen counter and all you have to do is stir it. It is called friendship bread because you are supposed to take your starter, add some more ingredients, divide it up and pass it on to share with friends- (so they too can have batter that smells like fresh brewed beer fermenting on their kitchen counter for 10 days!) If you have only seen the batter but never tasted the bread- you would never enjoy such a wonderful delicacy. It is well worth the work and the wait!

I remember the very first time I ever made a friendship bread. I was thirteen and it was a 4-H (scouting) project. My mother kept having me check with the leader to be sure that “awful smell” was really safe to keep. I hoped my leader was right. I carefully followed all of the directions, but for 10 days, I watched that smelly bag of gooey white batter ferment. In the end, it was well worth it and my hope was rewarded with a moist, delectable sweet bread.

Isn’t life like that sometimes? The waiting makes us unsure of how it will turn out in the end and the “batter” looks (and smells) so very unappealing! The place we find ourselves in is not our choice and it looks and smells so unpleasant. We would much rather skip right to the good tasting bread! We may have been through something like this before, “it turned out okay in the end,” but, we don’t like the process and the waiting!! We hope this time will turn out okay again. But we don’t know. We hope. We wait. We watch. Ten days can seem like forever. Two years like a lifetime…

Meanwhile we struggle with feeling like we are doing nothing at all and our situation is at a standstill. Maybe it feels like the ship is sinking and we are having a cup of tea, or a nap and we must jump up and do something? Or maybe we feel like we are alone bailing out the water because we simply can’t wait any longer.

Think about this. Through each day of waiting, the friendship bread batter is changing. Each day the yeast and the sugar work together to form carbon dioxide – which is why the bag gets full of air and even on the “do nothing” days, I have to let air out of the bag. Air, the evidence that a work is still going on. While it seems like nothing at all is happening, and we can’t seem to do anything but wait, God is still working. Things that we may not see are going on and God is not wasting a minute. Think of the “do nothing” times as resting, resting and waiting on God and letting Him do the work. Psalm 130:5-6 says just that; “ I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

Where are you at today? Are you following the instruction of the Lord? Has He told you to wait hopefully on Him? Has He told you to trust that the waiting will ensure that the end turns out okay? Just as my recipe tells me to wait ten days to finish the bread or it will not turn out right. Likewise, wait and let the Lord do His work in you. Hold on, be patient. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 Do what is right, and wait. In due season, we will taste the goodness that the Lord has for us.

Thank you Father, that you never slumber or sleep. Forgive me for not being patient and waiting on you as I should. Help me to know that my hope is in you and you are more than able to care for me and what I bring before you today. I know that your plans for me are good, to bring me a future and a hope. I will wait on you. Amen.