Three

By Ryan Phipps

In the 1920s, market research revealed that fewer and fewer people were baking at home. This was making flour companies nervous, so they devised a solution in a new, powdered cake mix. Simply add water, and you had batter in an instant. The first flavor hit the market in 1929, followed by a few others.

After World War II, General Mills and Pillsbury began offering extensive lines of these new cake mixes, and hundreds of other companies followed.

But after a few years, sales plateaued. Further research revealed that most home-bakers still preferred to make cakes from scratch.

Enter psychologist and marketing consultant, Ernest Dichter. Based on his research, he suggested that companies eliminate powdered eggs in their cake mixes.

His theory was that people making cakes didn't feel emotionally invested by just adding water. Being able to add their own eggs made it feel more like baking from scratch— a labor of love.

And guess what? When the companies followed Dichter's advice, they saw an upward curve in sales.

Who would have guessed that the missing ingredient in a cake was something from the heart?

This story serves as a good metaphor for the recipe of the spiritual life. Many of us are missing a key heart-ingredient.

It’s housed in plain text in the instructions.

It reads;

A lawyer asked Jesus a question to test him. “Teacher,” he said, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is equal to it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

—Matthew 22:34-46

We have, for generations, read this admonishing us to do two things.

First, to love God, and second, to love our neighbors. But there is a third ingredient here that gets overlooked.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus includes this third kind of love, because without it, the recipe is incomplete.

There’s no one in my life who judges me or criticizes me more severely than I do. Yet, when I extend love toward myself, it makes me more loving toward others.

We must have a thing before we’re able to give it. We can't teach what we haven’t experienced. And we can’t share what we haven't been given.

Are you loving God and loving your neighbors? Wonderful. Keep at it. But do you love yourself? If not, it might just be the third ingredient that the recipe of your life is missing.