The Bakery

By Bryan Craig

Come on in. Grab a cup of coffee and a hot pastry or bagel and pull up a chair. The Bakery is open for business. Open your heart for a discussion about Faith. Relax and enjoy yourself as you ponder thoughts about Jesus, the Bible, Prayer, the Holy Spirit and Church. You'll be challenged and inspired and you'll want to come back time and time again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryan Craig
• Release date: Jul 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476489759

Bryan Craig

By nature and occupation, Bryan Craig is a counselor. He is skilled in individual and relationship counseling and has finally decided to put some of his expertise to paper in order to help women and men alike find and sustain successful relationships. Bryan lives in Illinois, with his wife and children, where he continues to help people utilize their own power to foster positive relationships. Follow the author on Twitter @BeeCee78

Book preview

The Bakery

Bryan Craig

Copyright Bryan Craig 2012

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

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"Scripture taken from the

HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.

Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica.

Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved."

Cover illustration by James Nelson Lewis

studiolewis.wordpress.com

Book design by Lorinda Gray/Ragamuffin Creative

www.ragamuffincreative.com

Dedication

For my Missy, my biggest encourager, who fans the flames of God’s inspiration to write and share truths. She truly makes life sweet, but she always leaves room for the Baker to give me the ingredients my life needs. She doesn’t always understand my journey, but she trusts me and she trusts the one who leads me. In that, she blesses me daily.

About the Author

Bryan Craig is just another man on this journey of life. He has discovered some of the secrets of life that his heart had been yearning to find. He found these secrets in the quiet, still moments in the bakery. He shares them with you, hoping you will find your way to your own bakery and to an awakened life. Bless you.

Introduction

I don’t know if you have a hiding place—a place of comfort, of solitude—but I hope you do. For some, it may be a beautiful setting, on a large balcony, overlooking the endless, roaring sea or a lofty perch atop some secluded cabin with the smell of pine trees filling the senses. For others, it might be a plain setting—a bare stump, placed beside the railroad tracks. It is a quiet refuge, yet it holds the anticipation of the whistle of an occasional approaching train. It might be a garden, a simple collection of dirt and greenery, but with the fullness and hope of new birth. It could be in the seat of a small aircraft, hovering over the earth, held weightless by the light air, giving new perspective to life below. It could be a piano bench, where touch and rhythm and soul intertwine to transport one to another time and place. It might be a comfortable leather chair in a quiet study with library paneling and rows of books lining shelves, where imagination meets the visions of others who came before us.

Whatever the place, here is where we connect with the person God created us to be. It is in these places, unique for all of us, where life resonates. We need stillness; we need reflection and, we need to understand the connection between our Creator and this life He created. So God guides us to these places. When we find them, we recognize their value in our hearts, and we yearn to revisit them again and again. At first we think it is the beauty of the place or its secrecy that gives it its value, but upon further experience, we realize we are hearing a voice in this place. Yes, it is a faint, yet powerful voice speaking to our soul that captures our attention and imagination. Here Psalm 46:10 cries out, Be still, and know that I am God.

As we step aside, away from this world of business deadlines, peer pressure, instant gratification, fast food and quick fixes, and we stop and listen, we begin to see the world from a different perspective. God is trying to tell us something, if we would only listen. Perhaps you’re thinking, I’ve had some quiet moments like you’re describing, but why did you have to bring ‘God’ into it? Yes, in the world we live in today, we’ve allowed ourselves to disallow this notion of God as the supreme Creator of the universe, the one who wrote ten rules for life into solid rock, the one who sent His Son into this world to die for the sins of the world, so we mortal beings could one day enter into eternal life in a place called heaven. We think this couldn’t all be so, because we didn’t create it. It’s all about us. We are the masters of our own universe; we are our own gods—or so we think.

It’s very convenient to think this way, for it allows great latitude in our moral constraint. When we were kids, we all thought we wanted parents who didn’t discipline us, who would let us run loose with no chains to bind us. So, here we are as grown-ups, still wanting to have our own way, throwing our little fits. And when we do get our own way, our selfish desires lead us down dark paths. Where do we think adultery, drunkenness, stealing, lying, cheating, and all other sinfulness come from? Self-service ultimately destroys the self. So, could it just be that there is a God and he has a different plan for our lives? Could it be that these 10 rules were given to us for a reason? Could it be that God did send His son into this world to show us the secret to this life and the next? Could it be that built into each of us is a perpetual void, that yearns to be filled with a force outside of ourselves?

In the quietness of our hiding places, we find the answers. For me, it is a bakery. It is an odd refuge, considering the other possibilities—the seaside resort, the mountain cabin, or the cockpit of a small plane. However, it is here I find answers. It is a quaint little spot tucked in a small corner of life beside a quiet street. As you first open the door, the smell of