It’s Ready!

I watched as my wife made pancit (loaded Filipino rice noodles). She didn’t want my help, but I kept her company as she worked. Susan recently started making pancit, because we love it so much and she now has the time. When we lived overseas, Susan either couldn’t get the ingredients or would get some from her generous friends. After we retired, her sister would occasionally give us some, but she rarely had the time to make it.

I watched as Susan cried while chopping onions and I found a few things to do as she prepared the cabbage, garlic, and chicken. The noodles soaked while she stir-fried the other ingredients, and those were set aside as she cooked the noodles. Patis (fish sauce) and soy sauce were added at the right times and amounts during the process. In the end it was all combined, tasted and adjustments made as needed. Yes it takes a lot of work for it to turn out just right.

I left the kitchen for a while, but the smell and Susan’s heaping plate told me “it’s ready!” I saw what it took to prepare the tasty dish, I knew I would love it, but I didn’t get any benefits from my wife’s labor until I got a plate and ate some of her delicious pancit! It smelled wonderful, tasted great, and filled my empty stomach as I enjoyed what my wife had prepared.

If something more important had come up or if my wife had given the pancit to her sister, I would have been left out. Yes I would have found something else to eat and waited until she made it again, but that pancit would have been gone. If I was delayed in getting the pancit and it had been left out of the refrigerator, it may have spoiled. Yes, the ingredients were good, it had been prepared with care, but if I waited too long, I would have only had regrets.

That must be what it’s like for GOD, who “so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” Why will they not take His gift? “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17 KJV). He did the hard part. Everything had been prepared, but they are letting it go to waste!

Look at the sacrifice it took? Many suffered and died, to set the stage for the final victory! We were lost and unable to save ourselves, but “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8 KJV). We didn’t have anything to contribute, but JESUS gave His precious blood to save us from our own sins. While we were doing our own thing, JESUS said “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42 KJV) and obediently went to the cross and died.

Some have turned from their sins and accepted the precious gift, but “broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:…narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Mat 7:13-14 KJV). Don’t let it go to waste! It’s ready and “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom 10:9-10 KJV), then you can “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalms 34:8 KJV) because salvation is only the beginning!

Wayne Lance…

 

Wayne Lance…