Scottish shortbread is a generations old tradition at Christmastime in our
household. Two weeks before Christmas, using a recipe that came from my
husband's grandmother back in Scotland, I measured out the ingredients and
began the laborious work of kneading the mixture until it would hold
together in one piece. Then I pressed the lump down flat on a cookie tray,
pricked it with a fork in a neat pattern, and baked it at the required
temperature for the required length of time. 

When I took it from the oven, I noticed some cracks across the shortbread.
This was unusual. When I began to cut it up while it was still hot, the
cracks worsened. I was beginning to worry about it by now. When I carefully
lifted two pieces out, they broke into several small pieces. What's wrong
with this shortbread? I thought. I had made the recipe many times before,
and it had never been like this.

Just then my husband came into the kitchen and picked up one of the
fragments to try it. "Ugh!" he said. "This isn't very sweet. Are you sure
you put enough sugar in it?" Sugar? Then it dawned on me. In my haste I had
not even bothered to get out the recipe, and I must have forgotten to put
in the sugar. I had left out one of the essential ingredients of the
recipe, and the result was disaster, as far as shortbread is concerned.

In life there is always the need to go back to the recipe-which in
spiritual terms is the Bible-for directions and success, even if we have
done it many times before. Also, as 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us, a life of
faith and hope, if it's without love, is like my shortbread without the
sugar-just a crumbly, tasteless mess. Help me, Lord, always to have the
sweetening, holding together power of Your love in my life. You have given
the recipe. Help me to follow it.

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