We left early, early on yesterday's hot summer morning to go visit our grandbaby (and his mom and dad, of course), so by the time we got as far as Harrison, we were desperately needing a cup of coffee. How we even made it that far, I'll never know. Did we have enough will power to just get a cup of coffee? Of course not. As soon as we walked through the door of that donut shop, the sights and smells just reached out and grabbed us by every tiny bit of will power we might have had. Oh. My. Goodness. (We didn't mean to stop here; the car just veered off the road.) A few minutes later, coffee in one hand and a lemon filled donut in the other, we were back on the road.
And then I got to thinking.
I wonder if God would ever consider me a lemon filled donut. I like to hope that maybe someday He might just do that. Actually, I really need to aspire to be a lemon filled donut. Because here are my thoughts. There's not much work in being just a plain donut (in the global scheme of things, of course); I have never actually made a donut, and I'm certainly not trying to downplay the labor of love involved in making a donut. But in this donut store, there were dozens and dozens, maybe even dozens of dozens of plain donuts. And let me tell you, plain donuts are wonderful!! This old fat gal would never turn down a plain donut.
But right in the middle of the plain donuts was a rack of FILLED donuts. Do you see yet where I'm going with this? Just hang on. As much as I wanted to purchase a whole box of the plain donuts, that thought quickly went out the window when I spotted the lemon filled donuts. They are so much more special than a plain donut. It was all the wonderfulness of a plain donut, but it had this amazing lemon filling, and lemon is my favorite. But the filling didn't just jump in that wonderful plain donut by itself; the lemon had to be mixed with sugar, otherwise you'd have a wonderful donut with a very bitter and sour center. Someone had to temper the lemon with just the right ingredients, and then fill that plain donut. Would I have known it was a lemon filled donut if there had been no sign, no outward appearance? I don't think so. I practically inhaled that lemon filled donut, and smiled all the way to Springdale, because I wanted to tell y'all about how God had blessed me with this special treat.
As Christians, are we plain and sitting boxed up on a shelf, or are we filled and attracting others to us? And again, there is nothing wrong with plain, but oh to be filled! Does God love us any less if we're plain? Of course not. But oh my goodness, how OUR love grows for God when we have the right filling, the right flavor. We don't want to be bitter and sour; we don't want to overpower; and do we really want to sit boxed up on a shelf? What is our flavor? Are others attracted to us because of what's on the inside, regardless of outward appearances? Let's reach out to someone through love and just see what happens. Loving others can cost a lot, but not loving always costs more; let's put those God-given ingredients to work!
"But the fruit of the Spirit (filling of the donut) is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."
Galatians 5:22-23
What flavor is your filling?
(Here's my Lucy/Ethel spin on this blog. I promise I tried to catch every spelling, grammar and punctuation error, but after reading through what I thought was the final draft, I just about snorted coffee through my nose. One of the "lemon" filled references somehow became "demon" filled. Not today, devil! Not today!)