Never Take Your Hands Off the Dough

In life, just as in cooking, we can operate at at least three levels: the chef, the sous-chef, or the chef de partie — strategic, tactical, and operational.

Day to day, we are 3 in 1. We create, plan, and cook — both successively — one thing at a time — and simultaneously, everything everywhere all at once.

It's true that, depending on the area of life, we'll be required to operate at a different level.

We need to be seasoned. Everything depends on the recipe, the menu, the kitchen you're in, and what you want to prepare.

Growth always challenges us to level up. As you mature, you start to focus more on the menu than the recipe, more on the cooking time than the pot.

Yet that upward movement can lead you away from the dish, the practice, and the flavor. Life needs not only the chef's touch, but also hands in the dough.

Remember how, even if your mother shares her cake recipe with you, yours never tastes quite as good as hers? You know the secret? Her hands!

Life needs flavor, and everything we do needs a pinch of who we are. We must leave our mark on every recipe we prepare.

Imagine that the Creator of the universe could have made us with a single word. In fact, everything He made was through a word — except us.

When He created us, He chose to put His hands in the dough — or in the clay — and mold something special, relational. Someone who would reflect who He is. The same is true of everything you do.

You don't need to live with your hands in the dough all the time, but you must never stop putting them in!