Souring Agent
Life in the Reed household has been a bit slow here lately, which has been wonderful! Our weekends always seem to fill up, but at least we have been able to keep our weeknights to ourselves! I am such a homebody these days!
Tonight will be my third week of attending Beth Moore’s study, “Stepping Up”. It has been amazing, truly, and am so thankful that I am going through it! It has opened my eyes to areas in my life which need to be addressed and have been holding me down or ‘souring’ as she puts it. This comes from the Feast of the Unleaven Bread, of which they do not eat anything that contains yeast, nor do they have any in their homes. To them, yeast represented sin, as yeast is a souring agent that produces the gases for the bread to rise. Beth Moore said something that really hit home for me and I’m sure for many others. During times of repentance and dramatic change in your ways/behaviors, often small pieces of those are held back either subconsciously or consciously. This creates a ‘souring’ as part of this sin/yeast is left behind and begins to rot. Even though it began as a good thing to repair your previous sins, if any of those sticks around, it will make its presence known in very undesirable ways, just as the yeast does.
As far back as I can remember, my mom made bread. As I got older I would watch her and learn from her and then later began making my own. One of those times I remembered smelling something foul coming from the mixer. I cleaned every part that I could see and still the smell lingered. Finally, taking apart the mixer to the point that I could see inside, I found the source! It was some dough that had risen over too much one day and seeped into part of the mixer. Needless to say, it was awful!
I am understanding more now that if your past sins are not revisited, little remnants remain and is the souring agent in our lives. Even though going over those times of your life is the last thing you want to do, examining them is so important to clean out your gears or hidden areas where the sin remains or had sept into. Revealing it leads to prayer and for God’s grace to cover those areas.
