I love sourdough bread. I love making it, taking care of it, and especially I love seeing it grow after every feed. But there is one part of making sourdough bread that I just don’t look forward to. That is mixing the dough before bulk fermentation. My sourdough method has two sets of mixing. The first is called an autolyse. It is a whole lot of water and flour and the best way to mix is literally cleaning your dominant hand and going to town. I haven’t been a girl to shy away from getting down and dirty but boy do I dislike the feeling of mixing flour and water together. It is sticky, slimy, and about 5 minutes in I am regretting every decision to make sourdough bread that day. I know I know, I am so dramatic but my mind is always running wild and there is nothing positive flowing out. The autolyse sits for 30 minutes and then I add in the levain (sourdough starter), salt, and a little more warm water to help distribute the additions. This part sucks even more. Lol. You can feel the tiny granules of salt and the starter is elastic making you have to really work it into the rest of the dough. The muscles in my arm are cramping so bad and my fingers are so tired of taking these separate parts and turning them into one uniform dough. At this point I am over it. All I want is freshly baked bread and this is what I have to do to get that delicious outcome.
You may wonder why I can’t use the stand mixer for sourdough. Bakeries who have these major productions of sourdough bread are able to use their big, fancy industrial mixers to produce numbers. However, something bad would happen if I were to put my little recipe yielding only two loaves in the automatic mixer. It would kill it. It would demolish the structure because sourdough bread loves the feel of your hand mixing, shaping, and creating. Although I hate it sometimes, the gentleness of my hands molding that dough produces the warm, crispy, salty, and tasty reward that I want and crave so badly.
“If what you were waiting for came the next day every time, would God ever get the glory?
This sounds a lot like waiting doesn’t it? It’s hard, sticky, and uncomfortable. But I think there is a point to it. Could you imagine how I would take the bread for granite if I could just snap my finger and viola, I have fresh sourdough bread? No work involved just instant gratification. What does that even produce? It surely wouldn’t produce dependency on God. It would be by my own strength not by His. If what you were waiting for came the next day every time, would God ever get the glory? Would we ever know the reward of praying, seeking, and watching to see how the Lord will show up for us? I think you and I know that answer to that question even if it is hard to admit it. No. Trust me, I have tried to cut corners making sourdough to fit my timeline and the outcome is NOT the same!
I think of the Israelites. They had waited a long time to get out from under the oppression of Egypt for years and years. But when the Lord placed His spirit on Moses, after some deadly plagues, terrible weather, and famine, they were set free. As Moses set them out on the journey to the promised land, the bible says that the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh which made him change his mind. He gathered his army, his horses and chariots, to go after the Israelites who were desperate for freedom. Not too long into their quest they found the Israelites at a stand still thanks to the Red Sea. Could you imagine all this waiting to be delivered out of the deadly grip of your enemy and yet you find yourself stuck? But the Lord used this opportunity to display His glory! To show them that indeed He was on their side! Pillars of fire came down from heaven separating the Israelites from the Egyptians and God, using Moses, split the red sea right down the middle allowing them to walk through. On dry ground I might add. Not only were they saved in the most miraculous way, God literally put His glory and majestic power on display. The Israelites had never expirienced God in this way and they were filled with awe and faith.
Exodus 14:5-31
Waiting absolutely sucks sometimes. But maybe we should change our perspective. Waiting is the best place for us to be. We get to lean on Him. We have permission to be childlike and crawl to the feet of Jesus in our prayer time to just hang out with Him. To get to know Him and to allow Him to minister to us! Waiting brings about a strength that only comes from Him. This is the point. God wants to experience you just as much as we want to experience Him. The waiting seasons provide that. Would you rather be the spoiled child who gets everything they demand for? Or would you want to be the child whose Father comes down to their level to say, “No, not yet, I just want to be with you.”
“The waiting season isn’t a spiritual holding cell but the perfect place to experience the beautiful presence of God.”
After the dough is one homogeneous mixture, bulk fermentation is at least 4 hours, the loaves are shaped, and set in woven baskets to proof for another 18 hours. It requires waiting. But when I tell you the smell that comes from your kitchen when the dough is baking, is just magical. And every bite of bread reminds me of all the work that I had to put into the bread for the last 24 hours. The stickiness, the cramping, the hard work is remembered not as a burden but a blessing. There are so many gems that can be hidden under situations that are just plain hard. Thank God that He see’s the waiting period as a way to show us who He is, a good good Father. Waiting periods aren’t a spiritual holding cell but the perfect place to experience the beautiful presence of God.
Sister, I have had friends listen to me talk about the beautiful process of sourdough baking and they simply reply, “I don’t have time for that.” It’s fair but an impatient spirit will have you settle for a counterfeit reward. I want the real thing. I want to wrestle, struggle, and go through life’s ebbs and flows with Him. I don’t want to keep Him at a distance while I selfishly work things out for myself. When the truth is, I actually don’t have a handle on things. Just hold tight to the Father and wait. However, embrace how the Lord decides to bring a newness in your life. The Lord WILL show His hand. And He WILL get the glory out of your waiting.
