Baking a Cake

So I got this blister on my index finger today. It got me thinking about life and wisdom. I have heard it said many times that "a wise man learns from this mistakes of others". I have even said it numerous times, I am sure of it. Today, I thought of it in a new way. And I began to question how we work as humans.

When you cook it is not often that you just go at it with little foreknowledge. I was thinking I wonder if I have to freeze the pie I made to be baked tomorrow, or can I put it in the fridge. This is where the epiphany come in, "It is better to look up the answer than assume. If it doesn't work I would rather know instead of ruining a perfectly good cherry pie. I already know that I can freeze it and it will be okay." Then I began to unpack this thought more. Recipes are ingredients that have been proven to make something good or right. Before I mixed food coloring in white chocolate, someone had already tried. Before I decided to bake a pie, someone (millions of someones) had already tried and tested the various ways. We go to experts all the time in our life, so then why do we not do it as much when it comes to something more substantial than a cake.

Most would agree that it is silly to take flour, oil, eggs, sugar, buttermilk, vanilla, cocoa, etc mix it up in various ratios attempting to make a cake. Especially when finding a recipe would be so much more cost and time effective. It's more fun, exciting, adventurous, or whatever to make it up/try it out for yourself. But it is almost guaranteed that one is going to end up with almost the exact same results as everyone else.

It would be like coming home from school with your friends/siblings and find a sheet of cookies on the counter. The first child touches a cookies, "ouch, it's hot." Then child two, "It may have burned your hand, but I am more mature. It won't burn me." Then child three, "I believe you, but I just want to check for myself. I demand to have this experience. It is not fair for you to get burned. I want to know what it is like."

One of the wonderful things about God is that he has already shown us/told us what will burn us. Yet so often we demand to have the experience. Or claim to be different, so it is okay. We aren't tasting a new ice cream flavor here, people are ruining/destroying/hurting themselves and their minds.

We treat statements like:
Don't have premartial sex, you will create unnecessary emotional baggage amongst other things.

as matters of opinion like:
Don't eat that ice cream, it's chocolate. Chocolate is nasty.

When we should be treating it like fact:
Don't touch, the paint is wet.

or
Be careful over there, there is a large hole that is hidden.

If we are not careful, one day we will look back and say, "Why did I waste so much time/energy/life trying to figure out the recipe when someone already wrote it down?"

Just some thoughts that came to me while I thinking about how the blister on my index finger came to be.