The other day I made banana bread. We had a few bananas that were past their prime and had that brown, mushy quality that is perfect for bread. It was a pretty classic banana bread recipe with cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar. I mixed the ingredients together, poured them into my go-to bread pan, and popped it into the oven.
That’s when the magic happened. The aroma of the cinnamon and vanilla filled the apartment. My baby daughter played in the corner and I refilled our butter dish. I couldn’t wait for the bread to cool completely before I sliced some pieces, plated them, spread a heaping portion of butter on top, and sipped coffee while my husband and I sat together on the couch to eat our slices.
We laughed and chatted. I warmed my feet under his legs. Little crumbs collected on our shirts as we fawned over our little girl. It was a lovely snapshot in our lives. A simple moment of joy. But what made this moment so wonderful? Cinnamon is delicious, yes, but I would never eat it alone. Vanilla extract is perfectly aromatic, but you would not catch me taking a spoonful of it. You couldn’t pay me to eat a mushy banana by itself. But put them together and you get the delicious, creamy texture of a great banana bread.
When combining these parts, there emerged the wholeness of a delicious snack and a family spending time together. There emerged an opportunity for good food, satisfied smiles, and a whole lot of love. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
Our Lord promised to make a nation out of individual people with individual lives. He took the parts and made them into a whole nation that not only spanned the mountains of Israel, but has spanned the entire world, for all time. The parts, the separate pieces, became the nation of our Lord—cleansed in an everlasting covenant.
We must realize that the Lord has created a singular nation by which we refer to as one. The nation is His, not the nation are His. One Nation under Him. Our oneness with the Lord is our salvation. We must not forget this covenant.
How do should we live in this Nation under our Lord?
Samantha Aguinaldo-Wetterholm is a wife, mom, and soon-to-be-dentist currently living in San Francisco, California. You can find out more about her here.
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