Cease Striving (Or Churning) and Know That He is God

Dear countrymen, lend me your ears. That No Churn Ice Cream recipe all over the Internet is really good, slap your mama if you dared good. And easy! One blender, three ingredients. Trust me, it’s way better than dragging out the electric ice cream maker, rounding up the parts, and running to the store for rock salt because you never seem to have any on hand. And, it must be said: No Churn Ice Cream slays the ice cream making madness of my childhood. It makes a belle feel old to realize that there are some among us today with zero memory of wrestling siblings and cousins for your turn hand cranking the ice cream because the adults had somehow convinced you that it was fun. Score one for the big people, right?

(Yeah, so this photgraph predates me a bit, but I had to use it. Loved me some Waltons back in the day!)

At this point some of y’all may be thinking something like, “Bless Shellie’s poor confused heart. She’s too busy. the girl is talking recipes and deserts in the inspirational feature.” That’s okay. I appreciate every blessing you want to toss my way, but the truth is that I know exactly what I’m doing, y’all. Stay with me, here.

I’ve purposefully extolled the joys of No Churn Ice Cream and the old-fashioned hand cranked delicacy to set up a completely different type of sweet reward. There have been far too many times in my faith journey when I’ve tried to hand-crank passion towards God into my distracted or distanced heart. I truly wanted to give God the type of worship He was worthy to receive, so when it wasn’t there, I’d churn endlessly to try and make it happen. Not anymore.

Now when my heart is cold and I feel spiritually distant from God, I invoke the No Churn method of prayer by acknowledging that He is ever with me, regardless of how I feel. I tell Him how grateful I am to be His child and how privileged I am to join Him in prayer. The results have been nothing less than life-transforming. No Churn praying is literally yielding the sweet prayer life I once craved.

Hugs, Shellie