I discovered the joy of baking bread as a grounding escape from my digital work as a software engineer. It can be taxing to focus on logical flows all day long, so I needed something where I can “think” with my hands. Baking bread turned out to be deeply rewarding.
I’m not the most inventive baker, so I default to a simple bread recipe of five ingredients that I enjoy making. Activating yeast with warm sugar water engages my child-like curiosity. It is fascinating to watch the yeast “wake up” to warmth and start consuming sugar. As such, the leavening process produces gases which a baker can take advantage of to raise bread dough. Over a couple hours, the yeast goes to work in order to make the bread light. Then, of course, the best part of finishing bread is seeing it come out of the oven crusty brown.
To record my joy of baking bread, I’ll snap a picture and post it to my journal so that I may review it later and think about the progress I’ve made. One recent improvement I’ve made to my recipe is adding 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I’ve found that adding oil makes the loaf all the more tasty and soft. Granted, I could have found this out if I followed a more advanced recipe, but there is a certain novelty to learning it on my own.
I can’t forget, also, the joy of sharing my bread! If I share my bread with a group of people, my bread is often the first thing that goes, and it’s exciting to see something I baked be appreciated. One thing that I do find funny is when people ask if my wife made it, and I always enjoy surprising them with, “I did!” 😏. Sharing bread feels like a meaningful act of service to me, whether it’s with friends or in a more sacred setting.
Recently, I had the opportunity to dive deeper into the joy of baking bread by providing bread for the sacrament (1). I was so grateful for this opportunity, because I was looking at it as an act of service for Jesus Christ. Since bread takes around 4 hours to finish and church was meeting at 10am on Sunday, I thought I had better bake the bread the night before. By my estimation, I had to bake two loaves of bread for the congregation. I have not baked two loaves of bread before, so it was interesting to coordinate two dough masses. I baked the dough and I headed to bed.
The following morning, I fetched the two loaves and I drove off to the chapel to deliver the bread. Arriving at the chapel holding the two loaves of bread, I remembered a story about a young boy that also had loaves of bread and fishes that were fed to a multitude of people. A sense of reverence filled my soul. This question automatically came to my mind. “What are they among so many?” And then the answer came, “Let me handle it”.
A Moment of Reflection
This experience was striking to me, because it showed me that I can contribute what I can to the kingdom of God, even two loaves. I compared myself to the boy that had five loaves and two fishes. Perhaps the boy was on his way home from the market when he heard that the Lord was nearby. Did the boy expect to be an instrument that day in the hands of God? Probably not and the Lord was able to feed thousands of people by multiplying that food the boy had. Now my delivered bread wasn’t multiplied, because it was split and broken for the congregation. But I can imagine that the bread was spiritually multiplied for the multitude that were seeking Christ.
I’m reminded of an impactful story that I read some time ago. That story may be read here. I would quote the story, but I think it would make this post too long, so I’ll just talk about it. A man receives a calling from God to push a rock, but the rock doesn’t budge one inch. Eventually the man gives up and cries to God asking why was he given the task to move the rock. God responds saying that the assignment was never to move the rock, but it was to push the rock. The man pushing the rock is now stronger than he was before and God probably enabled him to accomplish another task.
The man in the story initially understood that his task was to move the rock. Why else would he be told to push a rock? It turns out he was told to push the rock in order for himself to become stronger. The little boy with five loaves and two fishes didn’t expect to be an instrument of God that day, yet he was called to help in an extraordinary way. God asks us to do things in order for us to help in His work. What we’re asked to do may not always make sense, but the fruits of those actions often reveal God’s greater plan.
(1) The sacrament is an ordinance done in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is meant to help remind the congregation of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.