I love maple syrup on my pancakes but checking the prices the other day, I stood mid-aisle gaping. Holy screaming catfishes! The imitation syrup sitting right next to the real stuff is so much cheaper – if “cheaper” is even a word we can use these days. Why is maple syrup so expensive?
Well, it takes 40 gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. It’s quite a process. After a very cold winter, maple sap begins to “run” in February through March. Workers drill a hole in the tree, insert a spile, add a tube to the spile and collect the sap (98% water) into a bucket. Then they pour the sap into a cauldron and boil it down to a brown, rich, sweet syrup, the yummy stuff we like to pour over our pancakes and waffles. A lot of effort and time goes into making maple syrup.
The same is true of people. Freezing times of hardship come and from them we experience the flow of God’s spirit indwelling each believer, guiding us, and strengthening us through the boiling down process of becoming a new creation. We change from watery sap to rich, sweet syrup, so that we can pour out love on others. It takes effort and time to develop good, strong character.
As I grow older, I want to become sweeter. How about you?