The Power of Pizza

Luke 9:23 (ESV)

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Generally speaking, there are three steps to making a pizza — buy the ingredients, put them into the form of a pizza and then cook it.

Consider three ingredients: onions, pepperoni and mushrooms. They all taste pretty good on their own. They are like the nuggets of wisdom that God provides us during the day, if we’re open to them.

The second step of making a pizza is putting the ingredients onto the pizza. If we take the “ingredients” of prayer and put them onto the “pizza” — ourselves — we might get a bite or two that tastes even better than the ingredients did on their own.

But it takes the third step for a pizza to become worthy of the name — it must be cooked in the oven, in a fashion that is both structured (turn to 400 degrees, for 25 minutes) and organic (how many of us calculate exactly how each pepperoni or pepper will settle into the cheese?).

Likewise, we can only grow closer to God the more time we spend with Him, in prayer styles that combine structure and our own individual path — the “oven” of prayer, if you will.

Dear Lord, we pray that we would make it a priority in our life to draw closer to You through prayer. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.