Not Too Big

Today I baked blueberry, lemon-glazed donut muffins for my husband. Because he loves them, and because I love him. They are exactly as good as they sound. And like all truly good things, they are hard.

First you mix two types of sugar. You zest four lemons and rub the zest into the sugars to make your own lemon-flavored, white/brown sugar.

That’s step one. 

So I’d been working on these donut muffins for about forty minutes. Earlier I’d been to the grocery store, bought baking powder and two packs of blueberries and whatever else, and I’d finally convinced both my kids to embrace the magic of “quiet time.” Things were going well.

And then I realized I didn’t have enough flour. I needed five cups of flour, and I was sure, assessing the mostly empty bag, it couldn’t hold more than three. I checked the pantry. I checked the fridge—you never know. Nothing.

If you have small children you can testify, this is a major dilemma. Getting both of them extricated from their zombie, quiet-time zone and into clothes and into the car and into the grocery store… It wasn’t happening. 

So I took a deep breath and started measuring my flour. I poured two cups into my two-cups-big measuring cup. Two. Another deep breath. Pour… Two more cups. Four.

Surely the bag is empty. Except it’s not. I pour again. I shake every tiny particle of flour from the paper bag into my measuring cup, and, lo and behold, I have exactly one more cup. Five cups of flour from a three cup bag.

Miracle. 

Okay. Do I believe God miraculously multiplied the flour in my bag so that Justin would have birthday donut muffins? I can’t say.

But I’m not ruling it out.

Do you know why? Because my God’s that big.

Every so often I’ll hear a friend tell a story like my donut muffin story and she’ll say “Praise God!” and I’ll see somebody else in the circle roll their eyes. And I know what they’re thinking, ‘cause I thought it, too: Doesn’t God have bigger things to do?

The answer is Yes. Yes, God has bigger things to do. And He’s doing them.

That doesn’t mean He didn’t do this, too.

God is big enough to care about whatever God wants to care about. Caring about my donut muffins doesn’t prevent Him from bringing peace to Syria.

Because He’s God. And He’s big. And, if He likes, He can watch me bake like a mother watches her precious child, invested in my happiness, helping me when I need help, all the while world-ruling from His Heavenly throne, welcoming a symphony of major and minor prayers, overseeing a million daily sunsets, and plotting world peace. 

God is not diminished in the multiplication of a mother’s flour. He’s multiplied.