Over Christmas a lot of the family gathered at Mom and Dad’s house. They live only a block away as a crow (or tufted titmouse) flies from me, so while I was there as much as I could be, I never spent the night. My three sisters (and their families) were there much more than I.
There were a lot of cookies. I mean a LOT. Mom has many cookie tins, but when that supply is filled up you use whatever container you can find. For instance, the Russian Teacakes (what our family calls “white mice”) has a dedicated container used year after year. It’s an old plastic lard bucket that’ll hold maybe a quart and a half. I could be way off on that estimate, so any of my family that wants to correct the record, please comment below.
SIDEBAR:
One of the containers often pressed into service as a cookie tin is a coffee can. Our family frequently reuses boxes for Christmas gifts, too. One year a sister got a box of microwave popcorn, but she didn’t own a microwave. It took years to discover it was full of socks.
Cookies often get stored in the garage, where it’s cold enough in winter to keep them preserved. No danger of nasty stuff growing on cookies when the garage is only ten degrees above the outside air temperature. As I write this, that temperature is eight below (-22 C).
While helping clean up one day I took some garbage out to the bin in the garage. While I was there I thought, “How about another cookie?” So I looked over the selection and couldn’t recall any cookies coming from the coffee can. “I’ll try that.” Imagine my surprise when I found coffee in the coffee can.
God frequently uses people for purposes that aren’t immediately evident, too. I mean, who would have imagined a box of popcorn to be holding socks? The same people who would expect cookies in a coffee can.
Back in the first century, the Pharisees were sort of like coffee cans. They looked like they’d make a great pot of coffee. Can you smell the aroma of opening a new can of coffee? The scent is wonderful.
SIDEBAR:
Ever notice how a coffee can is usually only about 2/3 full?
The Pharisees, however, were so full of themselves they were filled to the brim. “We’re coffee cans, and we want as much coffee as we can hold.” But God didn’t want coffee cans full of coffee. He wanted something for His cookies.
Over the centuries He’d tried to get His coffee cans filled with cookies, but the ones who should have known coffee couldn’t save them insisted on more and more coffee. So He turned to the lard buckets. The lard buckets were happy to hold cookies. After one of those buckets gets emptied, nobody would fill it with coffee grounds. Can you imagine a cup of that? BLECH!
When a person dies God will open up the container to find out what was inside. When He looks, will he find that you’ve filled yourself with coffee, or will He find the cookies you He gave you?
By the way, a shout out to Chris, who may be waiting for this post.
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