I milk Fern and Maddie every morning. It is my first “chore” of the day but I love to do it. The girls stand patiently on the milk stand and eat their breakfast while they wait for me to milk them out. I milk by hand into a stainless steel bowl. The stream of milk hits the bowl with enough velocity to produce air bubbles. Those bubbles build into a foam on top of the milk that looks like the peaks of a frothy cappuccino.
The foam distorts my measurement. In my milk bowl, it looks like I have a quart of milk, but when I strain and filter the milk, I am 1/2 cup or more shy of a quart. The foam on top is pretty, but it isn’t a substance I can use, so it is discarded.
We allocate much of our limited resources to things that will eventually be discarded. No thing in our lives is nearly as valuable as the condition of our heart and soul – and our relationship with Jesus Christ. This is a message I go to repeatedly, because it is too easy to focus on what we see, rather than what God sees. Social media and our addiction to following others only magnifies the desire to please, impress and conform.
As I need the milk in the bowl, not the foam on top, so is God interested in our best effort and time spent with Him. As I pour the foam down the drain, I am reminded that God most likely spends zero time thinking about how cute my outfit looks. He does however, care very deeply for my heart. I hand him my heart today in the gift of time spent reading His Word and talking with Him. He responds with beautiful reminders of His presence, building trust into our relationship and sureness into His calling.
“I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with their whole heart.” Jeremiah 24:7
