Just a Bowl of Soup.

photo adopted from: unsplash.com

Just a Bowl of Soup.

Imagine you're a guy and you have a nice bowl of soup. And, for some rather strange reason, soup-making is something you find very easy to do most of the time, although you feel ashamed that it's not the coolest thing a guy should want to do, so somehow it makes you quite uncomfortable.

So you find yourself doing it not because it is so much of a big deal, but maybe just because you need to, since it's what the rest of the people at home keep looking up to for the meals almost every other day, or just because you know you can make good soup.

So you begin thinking to yourself, "Other guys are doing cool things, big things, they start amazing projects, have amazing voices, are employed in posh government offices, and some are even super models. And yet for me, all I have is just a bowl of soup!"

You know you have a good heart (okay it may not be the best but at least it's not the worst either; at least you're better than some people you know of).
But, "Only if I had more, I could do more." You say to yourself for the millionth time. "I would take care of the needy, I would help the helpless. Only if I really had more. Only if I had this job or that one, only if I had better skills or talents." you continue to think you could do more, then.

Well, that's not the case for Jacob in the Bible: all he had was a bowl of soup. He was not Daddy's favorite son, had no birthright, was not a fun of going out to run after animals in the woods like his older brother was. Nevertheless, he didn't undermine his bowl of soup.

          "And the boys came to full growth; and Esau became a man of the open country, an expert bowman; but Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents." -Genesis 25:27

Jacob's brother was not just good with the bow, he was an expert at it. And Jacob continued to stick to what he knew best: cooking (despite the fact that that has not been fully acknowledged as a desirable masculine job in this our day and age).

I imagine most young men of Jacob's age would talk about the exciting adventures of the wild: hunting and fighting with wild animals, and stuff like that, while Jacob could not relate at all.

He had all reasons to neglect what he was good at or passionate about and try to at least blend in as a mediocre at what probably his father and the rest of society might have thought to be more suitable for a young man like him to do. He didn't. He rather stayed at home cooking red soup while his brother went out to hunt. And, as life would have it, there comes one of those fateful days when his brother returns from the wild, very tired and hungry.

             Esau said to Jacob, Give me a full meal of that red soup, for I am overcome with need for food: for this reason he was named Edom. And Jacob said, First of all give me your birthright.
           And Esau said, Truly, I am at the point of death: what profit is the birthright to me? 
           -(Genesis 25: 30 - 32)

There is someone somewhere who is willing to give up 10 acres of land for what looks like a bowl of soup to you. There is a king in a palace somewhere who needs someone good at making a bowl of red soup. There is a great opportunity that only requires someone good at making soup.

See, for only a bowl of soup, Jacob was able to receive a birthright that would change his lineage forever.

Okay, just in case you don't get it yet, I am not talking about an actual bowl of soup! I am talking about that simple, uncool thing that you are good at but  keep on overlooking because there are "more serious" things, bigger things, you are trying to do. 

You seriously see no sense of future in that particular thing, since you haven't yet seen anyone succeed at doing it, just like you would have thought in Jacob's case, since no man had ever gone into the books of history simply because he always stayed home practicing how to cook!
Yet by cooking his red soup, he was able to get the birthright, which would become the greatest treasure he'd leave with his children's children.

A bowl of soup for you today could be: your love for taking photos, pausing for photos, cooking, making crafts, comforting others, hospitality, creative thinking, plaiting hair, among others.

But Is the "bowl of soup" enough on its own?

           I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the                      strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but                time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

Ecclesiastes 9:11 here tells us that chance and time happen equally to all men, so how come some people are poorer than others? How is it that some are wiser than others? How come some are better than others, if indeed time and chance happen to them all equally?

Many factors do contribute to that, and I believe that building and investing in what you are good at, however "simple" it might seem to be, is one of those factors. Instead of being a mediocre at what is ideal, be the best at what you love to do.

Better-off people usually identify their bowl of soup and build it, they are not necessarily more lucky, more favoured, or something like that_ just like Ecclesiastes 9:11 has said above. They're only more ready by the time chance and opportunity get to happen to them.

Just when Esau was dying of hunger, Jacob's bowl of red soup was ready. He didn't say, "You see, I am very good at making soup, as you very well know. So you sit here while I run down to the market and get some groceries to make you the best soup ever!" Nope, he was ready, having built his skill over time.
Plus, he not only had the soup ready, he also had the bread to serve along with the soup.

We need to be ready, constantly practicing, and taking opportunities, in line with our natural skills, no matter how small or uncool they might seems to be at the moment. 

We need to work on whatever it is that God has blessed us to be good at, so that when someone who despises his birthright comes along, we are able to take that moment, or better still when someone who loves to invest in that line comes along, we are just as ready.

We always have to be working on, making better, our bowl of soup. So it is not just a bowl of soup, it is THE bowl of soup.

Lots of love, lovely people! Thanks so much again for reading.

Please share your "bowl of soup" in the comments below, and it's always supportive of you whenever you share this article with a friend. Cheers!