Life Lessons from Spring Baking Championship 🍰🙏

Last night, I was watching the last few episodes & finale of Season 3 of Food Network’s Spring Baking Championship. I don’t watch much TV, but food shows are one thing I do tend to get into when I watch. Baking is also one of my hobbies so it’s always very interesting seeing the different techniques.  

It was down to a home baker, an experienced trained baker, and a “rookie” trained baker. It was very surprising because at first, you keep thinking that the experienced baker was going to win. He did everything so perfectly. His desserts were executed with such care and precision, they really just stood out from the rest! But towards the last few competitions, he seemed to get over- confident in his skills, and was messing up on things that were quite essential. Yet, he didn’t seem aware of his overconfidence. In the end, this overconfidence got the best of him. He lost the competition to the rookie, who may not have had all the skills down pat like he did, BUT, he was humble and smart enough to listen to the judges and step up his game! The rookie took it right from under him! 😀😃 It was pretty incredible.

Maybe I’m reading too much into a simple baking show competition LOL, but it really made me think about life. The biggest lesson for me was, how we really should never lose our faith. The rookie, could have easily become discouraged or intimidated in the beginning when the more experienced baker and even the home baker kept winning the small challenges, and he would never win. He was afterall, a rookie & had less experience than the seasoned baker. But he knew he had a talent & he was confident in this fact. He kept his faith in himself that he could still win, and didn’t give up like other competitors did. Some even spoke it out loud, saying, they “know they are going home,” without even knowing what the other person’s cake tasted like in the inside!

What REALLY matters is on the inside. You can have beautiful cakes all day long but if they don’t taste good, don’t have the right texture, you might as well throw them in the trash! Sometimes we give up because we compare ourselves. We look at others’ lives from the outside & think, oh wow it looks so great, but we don’t know what’s REALLY going on. We judge without knowing the FULL picture, and take ourselves out of the game and why? Because we let ourselves get intimidated, lose our faith, all based on false, incomplete information! The winner of this competition, won although his cake was decorated nice (not perfect), but what mattered to the judges was that once they cut it open, it was the most amazing cake. Perfect flavor, texture, everything. He rose up to the challenge. The experienced baker’s cake LOOKED nice from the outside, even intimidating if you’re focusing on it. But the rookie pressed on and focused on his work. Little did he know, once they ate the experienced bakers’ cake, it was so bad, it was basically inedible!! Things aren’t always how they look!  

The second lesson, was that no matter how you may start, what really matters is how you finish. The rookie did not have a great start! He was not getting great reviews, he was barely making it to the next round, his work was inconsistent, but he kept trying and doing his best, and not losing hope that he could still seriously win, even though things did not look good at the moment. He didn’t let it shake him. He was humble, but not defeated, and there is a huge difference in those two attitudes. He took himself seriously but not overly so, and therefore, it reflected on his attitude and his work in a very positive way. Nerves didn’t get the best of him like they got the experienced chef, who kept dropping everything and making mistakes, and he was able to beat him! Isn’t this how life is?

The way in which we perceive ourselves will be reflected on the outside, through our daily lives & actions. Our thoughts become a self- fulfilling prophecy! So why do people CHOOSE to prophesize failure and defeat over themselves?! Remember, just because things may not be looking great at the moment, it does not mean that something great isn’t going to happen! Especially for us followers of Christ, we need to be believing in this every single day. God is in control of everything and everything has a purpose. It’s really difficult to understand sometimes when we look around our lives. We see that it seems we’ve lost many battles. We see that just like the rookie, we seem to be at a disadvantage. But just remember, we’re not even seeing the whole picture, God is! We don’t have all of the information, only God does, so why give up our faith in life’s situations, when we are still good for the win?! It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish that matters. ❤ Often times we are so hard on ourselves, we tend to adopt the world’s hyper- critical,  “logical” way of thinking, & hashly judge & condemn ourselves! This way of thinking becomes our inner voice, & it shouldn’t be. People of the world don’t understand how God can make anything happen for His children. We cannot adopt this way of thinking! God has the power to make changes, whatever they may be, at any point! He makes the impossible possible! We just have to believe…The rookie believed. And it earned him the win 💖🙌

⁶ And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

— Hebrews 11:6 NIV

²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

— Mark 11:24 NIV

²⁹ Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”;

— Matthew 9:29

Are there any areas of your life that you think you need to believe more, in which you need to have more faith?

I hope you’re having a wonderful & blessed start to your week! Xoxo 💖😗