I like chocolate chip cookies.  And who doesn’t love chocolate chip cookies. Recently, my son who works at Chick-Fil-A, came home with a bag of fresh, warm fresh chocolate chip cookies. Who could resist?

This got me to thinking about all the ingredients that make up a chocolate chip cookie. Have you ever tried to eat separately the individual ingredients that go into a chocolate chip cookie? Yuck, if you ever did.

Ever eat a little shortening? Don’t try it. Raw egg?  Bad.  eggs

Salt and sugar by itself?  Yuck.

Baking soda?   baking soda

Not good. Chocolate chips?  Now that’s good. One out of six isn’t bad.  Somehow when you mix five bad tasting things with one good thing and stir them up together, it tastes so good that you eat half the dough before you make the cookies.

That’s what God wants to do with our experiences. He wants to take bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, good and turn us into Mrs. Fields cookies.

All of the ingredients combine help us to minister more effectively.

I think back to the decisions that I have made in my life. The decision of where to go to college, my profession and, where we would live.

God was planning, shaping, and building my character with each ingredient of my life.

As our church embarks on a new adventure and experience and as we transition to our new name The Grove. I’m reminded of how significant  trees are in scriptures.

The passage in Genesis 12:6 “Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth

[oak] tree of Moreh.” In the past, God had only spoken to Abram. Here by the oak tree He appeared to him — the first of three recorded appearances.

The oak tree, as we will see, is special. This was probably not your average, every day agglomeration of trunk, branches covered with green leafy bits.  This may have been very similar to the large oak tree on our campus.

It is interesting that the word Moreh, translates to mean teacher. One of the most reputable conservative commentaries available today on Genesis says that it “suggests a place where divine oracles could be obtained.

I love our community of believers at The Grove. It is a place that we find fellowship and renewal. It is a place where divine oracles are read each time we gather.