Adding Yeast

I love baking. It's one way that I feel like I can do something that people will enjoy. However, I have to admit that I usually don't attempt challenging recipes. In fact, I'm a little embarrassed to say that I've never made real bread dough. So although I make caramel rolls and cinnamon rolls, especially on holidays, I cheat and use the frozen bread dough, and then add in a few ingredients to enhance the flavor, and the calorie count.

Yesterday I decided that since Tom and I are alone for Thanksgiving (so no one else would have to know if I ended up throwing something away!), I would try my hand at homemade pumpkin cinnamon rolls. With yeast. And kneading. And waiting. And hoping that I did everything right and that the dough would rise.

There is a lot of symbolism in that paragraph. 

We spend our lives attempting. And kneading. And waiting. And just hoping that it will turn out all right, that we'll be okay, that what we hoped would happen, would happen. 

As I kneaded I thought about that yeast. The packet I used was called Active Dry Yeast. Now isn't that funny? I love that it's called "active". We are called to action!

If I hadn't put the yeast in correctly. If I hadn't waited for the dough to rise. If I hadn't waited again this morning for the second rise, I wouldn't have had delicious tasting pumpkin cinnamon rolls. 

But no matter what I did - the kneading, the waiting - it would've all been for nought without the yeast. 

And my life - no matter how I live it - has that one ingredient that will allow me to rise too. It's a really small ingredient, and yet it is the most critical. Just hoping without adding the yeast won't make my bread dough rise, no matter what I do. We need the action - we need the yeast - at the center of our lives.

Romans 8:11 tells us "...if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you."

All we need is yeast...and hope. And for that we have each other. Rise up!