You Can’t Outwit Wild Yeast

Again he said, “To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened.” // Luke 13:20-21

Before the start of the pandemic (this is a very important fact I would like you to remember), I decided that I wanted to start baking sourdough bread. I didn’t simply want to bake it; I wanted to develop and grow my own sourdough starter because I had read about the miraculous way simple wild yeast and bacteria in the air can become your own unique form of rising agent. It felt all at once extremely scientific but also completely magical. 

It was supposed to be a simple week-long process. Unfortunately, it took me the entire summer to develop a starter that actually rose and fell like all the cookbooks and websites said it should and would actually make bread dough rise! 

The most frustrating part of the process was that even though I measured the flour and water precisely, there was no human way for me to force the yeast to multiply itself in the ingredients sitting on my kitchen counter. It was a completely invisible (to my eyes) process I couldn’t control. To this day I don’t know why it finally started working, since I did the exact same steps every day all summer long.

When I hear Jesus compare the Kingdom of God to the yeast a woman uses to make bread, I think of my painstaking experience trying to outwit unseen wild yeast that summer. The Kingdom of God is even more miraculous than the process of creating sourdough—a process I remain in awe of, but it is most assuredly one completely outside of our human control. It takes our human efforts and natural existence and transforms them into a supernatural process that can change the entire world. We measure and mix the flour and water of our lives and God implants the faith that makes the Kingdom grow. It’s unseen and unheard. A molecular change that we don’t control, a miracle that the natural world gives us small glimpses into. 

In the quiet of your heart today, pray for God to grow and transform your faith—all He needs is your offering of yourself and the belief that He can.