Sooner or later in our church, most conversations end up with food! Tonight’s Bible study was no exception. We were discussing Ps 65:5 TNIV: ‘You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds’ and Mark asked us what examples we could give of ‘awesome and righteous deeds’ God has done for us.
Works of healing, provision, leading and guidance were mentioned, but to me, the way God communicates His awesome, lavish, generous nature is best summed up by thinking about cupcakes.
Just getting a cupcake (a ‘bun’ in Yorkshire parlance) is itself a luxury, not really a necessity. But a plain sponge cupcake is not seen as particularly exciting:
The mere fact that God answers our prayers at all is pretty amazing, I think! But I have recently seen, very vividly in my own life, just how much more generous God is. He doesn’t just give us a plain cupcake. He gives us answers that have ‘all the bells and whistles on’, rather like these lavishly decorated cupcakes:
The variety of toppings we can have – butter-cream, whipped cream, iced buns, sprinkles, additional sweets like Smarties or sugared jellies, nuts, chocolate and so on – is mouth-watering. God is that kind of God. His ‘awesome deeds of righteousness’ go beyond sufficiency into abundance, just as Jesus promised a ‘good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.’ (Luke 6:38 TNIV)
That kind of abundance and awesome attention to detail shows us the kindness and generosity of God.