A Lesson from Cream of Mushroom Soup

"I have prepared my dinner"

Matthew 22:4

I had cream of mushroom soup for dinner tonight. 

Homemade.

With beef. 

And it took me back several years to a dinner at a hotel in Colorado Springs, when I first invented Cream of Mushroom Soup with Beef.

Yup.  That was me.

No one in my family particularly likes cream of mushroom soup, so once in awhile I make some and freeze it in portions just big enough for myself.  Then I can have it for lunch, or for a dinner when they're all gone. 

They were all gone tonight. 

And when I pulled the baggie of soup out of the freezer, I realized it was right next to another baggie that had the last of the standing rib roast from Christmas dinner.  There wasn't much of that left, but I don't like to waste food, so I stuck it in the freezer until I found a way to use it.  And it occurred to me this would be a great way to use it.  Makes a mug of cream of mushroom soup a little more.... special, wouldn't you say?

The first time I had beef in cream of mushroom soup was in Colorado Springs.  I was there for a conference, and the buffet included both the soup, and the beef (among other things).  I took a little of both, then thought the meat might get cold too fast, so I decided to cut it up and add it to my soup.  And it was delish.

Now I know, of course, that this concept is many years old.  That people have been adding beef to cream of mushroom soup for generations.  Probably since shortly after someone first came up with the cream of mushroom soup!

But I'd never seen it before.  It was an idea I had, when I saw the soup near the beef.  No one suggested it, no one showed it to me.  I just had a thought and acted on it.

This, to me, is the joy of studying the Bible.  Thoughts, realizations, connections, inspirations... wondering something and then finding it out... I'm pretty darn sure that when I have some deep and amazing spiritual insight, I'm not the first one to have that particular insight.  But it's exciting, because it's new for me, and it came to me not through a pastor or a teacher or a commentary, but from my own brain and heart, and the Holy Spirit hard at work in me.

And it's funny how, once I come upon a discovery, it forever feels like mine.  Just like my soup.

~ "Give instruction to a wise man,

and he will be still wiser;

Teach a just man,

and he will increase in learning" ~

Proverbs 9:9

~