One Single Pancake

Jesus is already right there where you are. You don’t have to figure out the whole plan—just trust Him for the very next step.

“Do you know what you want?”

“Just one single pancake.”

“One single pancake?”

“Yes.”

“Blueberries? Chocolate chips?”

“Nope. Just the one single pancake, please.”

“One single pancake it is.”

“Thank you.”

This was the first conversation I had today. I woke up craving a pancake and decided to go to a local diner to satisfy my need. I sat alone at the bar and sipped on black coffee and read The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen as I waited for my pancake to arrive.

Nouwen’s words are honest and hopeful. Every page of the book seems to have something I need to hear and hold on to. Just as the waiter refilled my mug, I underlined these words: “Jesus is where you are, and you can trust that He will show you the next step.”

I faced the front door and the long line of recently washed windows. I watched as people parked their cars and dragged themselves through the front door. Humans look like zombies in the morning. Everyone is tired and trying and ready to say a two-word prayer to their server: “Coffee, please.”

When I sit alone at restaurants, I let myself see the entire room. I’m curious and easily distracted and good at doing both. If people-watching were a sport, I’d have a lot of trophies. I’ve learned that when I sit with others, I need to have my back to the world, so they can have my full attention. If we go to a restaurant that has TVs, you can kiss the conversation goodbye.

The waiter brought my one single pancake with a smile and asked if I needed anything else. I didn’t. I had all I needed. The restaurant began to fill up, and so did I. Pancakes can find every empty space of your body and fill it full. When you eat a pancake, you feel joy, but soon that joy turns into drowsiness. No one has ever eaten a pancake and thought, Now I have energy for the rest of the day.

I continued reading my book, but I kept flipping back to those seventeen words: “Jesus is where you are, and you can trust that He will show you the next step.”

Lately I’ve been thinking about trust. Life doesn’t look the way I thought it would, and this has slowly sent me spiraling. Yet the invitation to trust Jesus remains. It always remains.

Trusting is tiring work. It’s as exhausting as it is beautiful. Yet, every day I find myself opening my hands and saying to God, “I trust You.” Most days I even mean it. Henri Nouwen was right: Jesus is present with us, and He will show us the next step.

Sometimes I have to sit in the corner and turn my back to the world to remember this is true. Sometimes I have to turn around and look back on my life and see how Jesus has been present with me, showing me the next step. Sometimes I have to go to a diner and order a pancake and sit in silence to let those seventeen words from page 18 roll around in my head.

Jesus is where you are, and you can trust that He will show you the next step.

Reach Out to God

Reach out to God.

And then do it again.

Reach out with full or open hands.

Bring Him everything or nothing.

Show Him your scars and tell Him your stories.

Ask your questions and ask them again.

Reach out to God.

Put your hands in the air or tuck them in your pockets.

Write a letter or read what He’s written to you.

Lift your eyes to the sky or close them tight.

Listen or scream or wait or sing.

Wonder out loud or inside your head.

He hears it all.

He has heard it all.

There isn’t anything He hasn’t heard, so say what you need to say.

You cannot offend God, but you can reach out to Him.

And maybe you’ll see He has always been reaching out to you.