I know it’s been a while since I’ve published a guest post on my blog, but this was too good to pass up. Today's post comes from Sherry Fam, the wife of Fr. Timothy Fam, who is my fellow priest at STSA Church. In her post, Sherry calls our attention to a virtue that is sorely lacking in the world today. It’s a lesson that is desperately needed with all that’s going on in the world these days. If you too are interested in guest posting on my blog, please visit my Guest Post guidelines for more info.

With the current coronavirus pandemic, I’ve been spending a lot of time at home, as we all have. Rather than doing all the things I need to be doing around the house, I find myself cooking and baking as my own productive-procrastination. We gotta eat, right?

The kitchen is my favorite space in the house, no doubt about that, and as a result of binge watching of The British Baking Show mixed with sheer boredom, I recently took up bread-making.

Bread. A staple of almost every meal across the globe. Such a simple and yet complex food that we often take for granted. Bread, in almost every culture, is one of the few foods that is considered a basic need.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about all my favorite restaurants, the ones that serve free bread with butter somehow find their way to the top of my list. Growing up in a household that obsessed over finding the perfect bread, be it French bread or pita bread, I’ve learned to LOVE bread, probably a little too much.

With my newfound passion for baking bread, I’ve discovered a couple things:

1) Making bread is not like making cake (obvious to some, but not to me)

2) A mistake as small as ½ a teaspoon of the wrong ingredient could be disastrous

Yes, I know, I have no clue what I’m doing! I will say though, that my first couple of attempts at making bread were not half bad (my husband can attest to that). However, more than just continuing my family lineage of bread-obsession, I have learned an important spiritual lesson.

Instant gratification is for fools.

If you love instant gratification, don’t bake bread. What I quickly discovered about bread-making is that it requires patience and long-suffering (literally).

The dough has to be made, kneaded and then left to “rest” and “rise” slowly, very slowly. This resting and rising process could take 3 hours, it could also take 12 hours, it depends on the outcome you are looking for. If you get impatient and bake your bread too early, as soon as you put it in the oven, it won’t rise. All your hard work making and kneading your dough will sadly amount to a flat loaf of something possibly edible, but I dare not call it bread. Bread-dough needs to rest in order for the yeast to do its work and your bread to rise.

Full disclosure, I don’t really know what the yeast is doing or how it makes the dough rise, but I know that the way the dough looks before and after it has “proved” is completely different. If I give my dough enough time to prove, when I put it in the oven and it’s met with extreme heat, rather than collapsing, it rises.

Often times in life I foolishly forget this important lesson. I say a quick prayer and include all the “right” words and then expect a quick fix, an easy solution to my bad habit or my uncomfortable circumstances, or worse, a perfect life.

How often has that actually worked for me? Zero, zero times.

The Holy Spirit is like the yeast, He is a gift given to us by God to work in us in order to make sure we rise (isn’t that a beautiful thing). His work in me takes time. Proving of my character, so to speak, is never a quick process, just like proving my bread dough. If I become inpatient and take matters into my own hands (which I foolishly do a lot), I tend to mess it all up. Adding yeast to my dough is a critical part of the bread-making process, but it isn’t enough to just throw it in, I have to give it time to work.

In the same way, saying a prayer or asking the Holy Spirit to change me is critical to the process of my sanctification, but the prayer on its own, is not enough, I have to give the Holy Spirit time to work in me.

There is no “express” button on yeast, (though now they have instant yeast, but trust me, the word “instant” is deceiving). There is also no “express” button for the Holy Spirit. He is working in us, actively and faithfully to make sure when we are tested by the fire, we will indeed rise. That kind of work takes time.

A journey of sanctification by the Holy Spirit is not for the foolish, who seek instant gratification. Instead, it’s for the patient and long-suffering, much like making bread.