Little is Much

On our way home from an Easter trip to Texas, we stopped at the famed Collin Street Bakery.  Howard was determined to buy one of their delicious fruitcakes.  It wasn't for us, though.  At our Wednesday night Bible study, cookies are usually served, and he had the idea to take a fruitcake to share.

Since many people don't like fruitcake, I was wondering if it would be appreciated.  Our pastor is from Texas, though, so I was happy to hear him say, "If you folks don't eat some of this fruitcake, you don't know what you're missing!"  They did like it, and we still had some to take home.

I was reading the little brochure that was packaged inside the fruitcake container and learned that the popular cake, called "DeLuxe," had its beginning in 1896 when a baker from Germany, who had brought his old-world skills and traditions with him, had a bakery in the bottom of a Texas hotel.  When guests, including Will Rogers, John Ringling and the like tasted the trademark cake, they had the cakes mailed to family and friends back home.  The cakes are still being mailed world wide today, especially at Christmas.

This reminded me of how small beginnings can lead to something very large.  Zechariah 4:10 says, "For who hath  despised the day of small things?"  Although he was referring to rebuilding the temple, it is a principle and example throughout the Bible.  When Sanballat heard that the wall of Jerusalem was being rebuilt by the efforts of Nehemiah and the help he had enlisted, he became very angry. The Bible says in Nehmiah 4: 1 that "he was wroth...and mocked the Jews."  In the next verse, he is saying, "What do these feeble Jews?"  Nevertheless, the work was completed!

When Jesus was teaching about the kingdom of God, He  made a comparison by saying, "It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it." Mark 4:31-32.

This parable has come to pass in our day, as we see the Word of God, first spread by the early Christians, spreading all over the world.  David writes in Psalm 34:8, "O taste and see that the Lord is good."  As people realize God is a good God, they understand this and embrace Him.  The bakers of long ago have passed down the recipes, baking methods and traditions that go into the cake known as "DeLuxe." Best by Taste Test used to be a slogan for a brand of bread, I think. It seems to fit here! The Lord is good!