Don’t you just love delicious, right-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies? Did you ever wonder who came up with such a tasty idea? Ruth Wakefield, who owned the Toll House Inn, was trying to make plain chocolate cookies and ran out of baker’s chocolate. She substituted it with sweetened chocolate that she broke up into pieces, thinking it would melt. However, the little pieces stayed in place and created a brand new cookie.
Ask many people today what their favorite cookie is and they’ll tell you it is that “accidental cookie.” Many other inventions were created by accident when the person was trying to accomplish something else. Think about what we would be missing out on if those people hadn’t been open to possibilities and had ignored something new.
Unexpected Turns
The Bible is filled with examples of unexpected turns. How many times do we see people going along with their days only to be stopped in their tracks (sometimes literally) by God to do what He had planned? There’s Ruth who expected to spend the rest of her life dedicated to her mother-in-law, but found love out in the fields with Boaz.
And what about a young girl planning her life with her future husband, dreaming of having children and cooking meals in her new home. Then an angel visits her, tells her that she has been chosen for the greatest task ever, giving birth to the Savior of the world. It turns her world upside down. Don’t you just love her reaction? “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word.”
Would you have said that? Would you have been that willing to have your plans derailed, your life turned upside down, risk the censure of neighbors, friends and even family by doing something socially unacceptable in those days? Many of us would balk at having an obstacle get in the way of our plans. We certainly would not have accepted that big of a change in our plans with such grace and humility.
God Laughs
You’ve probably heard the quote “Man plans but God laughs.” While that is not exactly Biblical, it does follow along with Proverbs 16:9 where it says that man (woman, too) makes plans but God directs the steps. We can make plans through life all we want, but it is God that controls what path we take and what we experience along the way.
God has a purpose for your life. It may not be what you expect, what you are planning for and hoping for, but it is far better than what you can imagine. It may not be the easy road, the quiet path. After all, Mary had to watch her Son die for the sins of the world. But if someone had asked her if she would have done things differently when the angel came to her, I’m sure she would have thought for a moment and said in her quiet, humble way, “No.”
Sometimes our purpose in life comes to us from chocolate chip cookie mistakes and sometimes it happens when angels tell us other plans. The one thing that is certain is that if we are open to God’s purpose even if it is not what we have planned, He will bless us far beyond what we could expect or hope for.
