Personal Growth: How Your Life Resembles Chai Tea [and why it matters]

I mix a lot of ingredients together to make my cup of Chai tea in the morning. (A big thank you to Baby Adam’s mom, Jessica, for the recipe). 

I put in just the right amount of cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, ginger, cloves, pumpkin spice (my addition), fennel seed, Assam black  tea, water, milk, sugar, and honey. Leave out one of the ingredients or change the proportions and no matter how long I let it simmer, it will not taste the way I’d like it to. 

Perhaps Personal Growth Is Like Making Chai Tea

I can’t help but wonder if that’s kind of how it works with our lives as well. God provides many ingredients for our personal growth: His Word, prayer, worship, fellow believers, sacraments, experiences, our individual personalities and talents. To be seasoned just right, we need to steep them together, all in proper proportions. 

• Forget the sweetener of being engaged with fellow believers, and life will be a bit more bitter.
• Leave out the base ingredient of spending time in God’s Word and prayer and be weakened.
• Hide your spices of personality and talents behind a mask you feel is more acceptable and useful, and risk missing out on your unique taste.
• Miss the tempering lessons from difficult experiences and be too sweet.
• 

I believe God has a unique recipe, an intended flavor, for each of our lives. [←Tweet this.] No two recipes/flavors are exactly the same. But we’ll only taste the way He intends if we allow all the ingredients to be mixed together, and in the amounts He planned. 

I know it’s not easy. I’d prefer my recipe card read a bit differently. I wish God would have added “musical” to my card or “poised” or “bold” or “patient.” Maybe He could have removed “sufferer” or “planner” or reduced the amount of “seriousness” or “uncertainty.” 

But when I add ingredients God hadn’t planned or ignore those He intended for me, I miss out on the rich life of who I am supposed to be. We are all to steep together certain things, such as His Word, prayer, and worship, but we all aren’t supposed to have “writer” or “nurturer” as primary ingredients.

The losses I faced years ago–although painful–served to flavor me a certain way. So did each of my experiences, whether difficult or joyful. And as I’ve began purposely nurturing my faith by adding in more prayer and Bible reading, I’m more closely resembling the person I should be. 

Your uniqueness is a gift as are the ingredients that contribute to it. Celebrate it. Nurture it. 

Add to the rich flavor of the world, by letting God mix you together as He planned.

Become the best-tasting “you” you can.  

“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.” (Romans 12:4-6)

Reflection: Which ingredient(s) do you need to allow in your life, or which do not belong? Is there one you need to better nurture? 

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