I woke up yesterday yearning for ice cream. Not just the ordinary kind that you can buy at any old grocery store, but rather the kind that is make from your own hands. Mixing the creamy, sugary blend with vanilla and ice to give it the tell-tale texture and flavor. Kneading the liquid slowly into a solid reminds me of the way my mother would talk about raising kids. “It all starts with habits,” she would say, refining those little things into bigger clumps and bigger clumps until you have an entire personality and destiny. Life is like a box of chocolates?! Life is much more like forming ice cream in a zip-lock bag on a hot Sunday afternoon. It takes effort. It takes time. If we are striving after God, our growth may be slow; in fact, our spiritual formation takes a lifetime. There will be times when our hands get tired, times when we feel like taking the easier path, and times when we want to ignore God and his call to be different. In the end, however, the prize is well worth the wait. The ice cream that is churned slow and steady always tastes good in the end. Do not give up. Pursue God. Pursue Holiness.
Hebrews 12:1-2
Hebrews 12:14
Romans 6
