In high school, I had an Enlish teacher. She was very good, and I liked her a lot. In time, someone else liked her a lot and married her, and she must have liked him a lot, because he had 7 children and she took the whole lot right along with him.So we were talking about cooking one day, and she said she couldn't cook.
Well, said I, anyone can cook who can read. (Remember, she was the type who could read.)
No, said she. That wasn't enough.
Well, said I, at least anyone could make pancakes -- from a mix, I added, to make sure.
No, said she. Not even pancakes from a mix.
Then she told me the awful truth.
She had a mix, and she read the directions. And, following the directions, she put some mix into a bowl.
And she melted butter.
And she added one egg.
She added it right in the frying pan where she had the melted butter, and fried it on the spot.
End of story.
The moral is: not everyone can make pancakes. You think a bag of mix with directions is perfectly clear; it is not. Nothing is clear. People can misunderstand anything.
And God is no exception. He can be misunderstood, even by smart people, and even by good people. They might really have met him and loved him and they might have talked to him intimately, and still they might not have understood him perfectly, and even if they had, we might not correctly understand their very simple description of it.
But it's worth working on it.
Have a pancake.
