Baking cookies to illustrate Bible lessons

We did something that turned out really fun and very illustrative of Romans 8:28 the other week.  My girls asked me to share it with you!  We enjoy the in depth Bible studies provided by Pam at http://www.doorposts.com/blog.  Many of them are offered for free!  They are designed for busy moms and include suggestions for sharing what you learned with your children at the end of each lesson.  Pam knows how to get the most from each Bible passage.  Now that my daughters are 14 and 10 we do the studies together.  We had been working through Romans 8 when her ideas for illustrating how “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose” inspired me to jump on my favorite dessert blog http://www.chocolatecoveredkatie.com to find one of Katie’s quick, healthy and still sweet recipes.

We proceeded to set out the ingredients for cookies and taste each one – they mostly did taste not taste good individually – and we named each ingredient for circumstances or problems in life, based on the taste.  Here is my Vintage Doll’s list:

Baking Powder: Bitter         Friends let you down

Flour: Boring and dull        Everyday life

Oats: Dull, but healthy      Time with our Bible

Chocolate: Yummy       Good times with God

Raisins: Getting something free!

Nuts: Protein  Helping someone

Salt: Sickness

Coconut Oil: healing

Maple Syrup: Yummy and sweet, but too much will make you sick   Family Vacations, retreats, etc.

We mixed the ingredients and tasted the (NO EGG) recipe, before and after baking.  When all those yucky or dull ingredients worked together, something REALLY good came out of them, just like God working our circumstances for our good.  We thought about our past, present and even future, about how we have seen good come from some of them and are still waiting for good in others (like waiting for the cookies to be finished baking!).  We memorized the verse while snacking.  It was a lesson my kids have not forgotten and the cookies have been gone for several weeks!