Have you ever been to The Cheesecake Factory? Their menu is enormous, 20+ pages of
choices. It takes fifteen minutes just
to read the menu. But while you’re
reading, they bring you some of the best wheat bread in the world. The secret?
A little molasses. You’ll eat the
bread, and ask for more, and go home and wish you had eaten more. SO good!
You might be inspired to go home and make bread yourself. You might tweak your own recipe, tasting and
trying different variations. You may go
back to The Cheesecake Factory to try theirs again, making your bread match
theirs. Eventually, you get it just
right. Your bread is every bit as good
as theirs, maybe even a little better.
But you don’t get just the bread when you go to The
Cheesecake Factory. You choose something
from the giant menu to eat with the bread.
The food is so good that you order the same thing every time you
come. You read the whole menu,
certainly, but you always order your favorite.
You can taste your entrée before it comes. You love it, and you know how to eat it.
One day you decide, just because, to try something new. You still get the bread, and you still make
it at home. You’ve tried your old
favorite a few times at home, too. It’s
time to do something different. Turns
out, this new entrée is delicious, too.
It becomes your new favorite, and you eat it until you know everything
there is to know about that dish. You
can’t possibly eat every item on the menu at this lunch, but you can really
love these two items. Someday, you’ll be
ready to add another entrée to the list of things you eat.
The doctrine of Christ is kind of like the menu at The
Cheesecake Factory. There is a lot to
read, a lot to learn, a lot to take in.
You can’t take it all in at one meal, or one lesson, or one General
Conference talk. Someone else may tell
you how much they love family history, or temple work, or whatever, but you may
love and be particularly good at being friendly with your neighbors, who you
love. Good for you! Loving your neighbor is part of the doctrine,
and you nailed it. Excellent! That is the bread, and you can spend as much
time as you need perfecting your bread, whatever it is. When you’re ready, you choose the next thing
to work on, and spend as long as you need perfecting that. The whole menu doesn’t disappear, but you
have wisely chosen, with guidance from the Lord, what you will work on today,
and this month, and this year.
The Cheesecake Factory also has cheesecake to die for. Every flavor is better than the one
before. In the Eternal plan, Jesus
offers to buy you a slice of cheesecake every time you eat. Sometimes we feel too full for the
cheesecake, or too overwhelmed to feel our Savior’s love, but He will always
offer to buy it for us. The cheesecake
is always there.
Eat the cheesecake.
Whatever other menu items you choose, whatever you are perfecting at
this moment, eat the cheesecake. Let
Jesus fill your soul with love and light.
Don’t worry about the rest of the menu, there’s plenty of time to try
all the entrées, and appetizers, and side dishes. They will come in the right time, when you
are ready to try them. But always eat
the cheesecake. After all, it’s
free! Jesus bought it for you.
