reverse_the_curse2My wife makes incredible granola! She could actually sell the stuff and make a ton of money! She has a secret recipe that she has finely honed until it’s . . . well, perfect (OK, now I’m hungry).

You should be at our place when she makes it; once a week, aka granola making day (GMD), she makes a huge batch that lasts us for about a week. For several hours, as she mixes, cooks, bakes and dries the granola, the entire house smells granola-y! Mmmm.

Several years ago I was in charge of GMD because my wife was out of town. She left me the recipe, explicit instructions and tasked my daughter to supervise me (wise woman).

Things were going well . . . until I got to the “oil” portion of the recipe. I didn’t have any of the oil it asked for and I didn’t want to head to the store with two kids in tow so I did what any self-respecting guy would do: I improvised! I thought hey, oil is oil right? So, against my daughter’s wise, discerning and multiple warnings, I decided to use olive oil instead—and not just the “light” kind, but the “extra virgin” olive oil (the only kind any self-respecting Puerto Rican would always have on hand). I reasoned extra virgin means extra flavor!

Well the rest of the day went off without a hitch . . . until we decided to have breakfast for supper–one bite was all we needed to discover that this was an epic fail!

Ignore a Recipe

Nice story but what’s the point? If you ignore a recipe and try to substitute your own ingredients—even if it’s just one–bad things will always happen; this rings true of food . . . and life.

Long ago in a garden, God left his children with a specific recipe for success, but they decided to do their own thing (see Genesis 3) and the results predictably left a very bad taste in all our mouths.

It was in the midst of that colossal mess, that God would pronounce some dire consequences, but in the midst of those, He would also inject hope by telling them that He Himself would fix the faux pas they had made; here’s how He put it: “You

[serpent aka Satan] and this woman will hate each other; your descendants and hers will always be enemies. One of hers [Jesus] will strike you on the head, and you will strike him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15).

God, through Jesus, would, in effect, reverse the curse that we, as humanity, had made so long ago.

Today, take some time to give God thanks for the greatest gift of all: Jesus, the right ingredient, completing the recipe for your salvation.