By Tony Tench,  Thanksgiving Day

My Mother is a great cook!  She always has been able to bring the skills to the kitchen.  We all have our favorites from her culinary repertoire.  There was a day when she would make cakes to order and she was in such demand that it liked to have worn her out — so she had to put the brakes on that idea. She has made all of her signature dishes for us until it’s no wonder she remembers all the components and how they go together.

However, on this Thanksgiving morning I notice what I have seen for so long. Though Moma knows the ingredients and the combination dynamics, she always, always, has her recipe book open and she refers to it throughout the process of making the deliciousness possible for all of our family.

So, today, among so many ways I am thankful, I am also thankful for the lesson learned from Moma’s kitchen because it has far-reaching implications for the way we as Christ Followers live our lives.  Namely, as long as we have been following Jesus, and as much as we “think” we might know about the journey of discipleship, even the most faithful among us cannot forsake going to the recipe book on a daily basis.

As Kyle Matthews sings the old story from the monastery, “The saints are just the sinners who fall down and get up.”  It’s an image that declares that for all our progress as pilgrims in the way of Jesus, we are not there yet; and, in order to get there, we have to regularly “go to the recipe” and not depend upon our own understanding.

What’s the recipe?  Well, as Christ Followers, the recipe is quite simply Jesus, his life, his words, and the lessons the Holy Spirit teaches us therefrom as we daily read the Bible:

Yes, today we are thankful for Jesus.

May we keep looking at the recipe until we feast with him in his eternal kingdom!