I pulled up to the airport anxious to pick up Brett after a five-day separation.  Faulty GPS directions and slowed traffic stretched the drive home past lunch and Aspen’s tummy rumbled in the back seat.  Watching out the window Aspen recognized we were near one of her favorite restaurants, “Panda Express”.  I heard her sweet little voice float up from the back seat, “Mommy, I’m hungry, can we stop at Panda?”  I glanced over at Brett, who was fast asleep, and decided he wouldn’t mind if we stopped to feed our starving child.

A quick trip off the freeway satisfied Aspen’s longing for lunch and she settled back into her car seat with her coveted bag of fried rice and veggie spring rolls.   After munching happily through lunch she rummaged through her bag and pulled out the fortune cookie.  Eagerly tearing open the plastic wrapper she broke  the cookie open looking for the small strip of paper with her future written on it.  Disappointment tinged her voice as I heard her say, “Mommy, there’s no fortune in my cookie.”  She decided a fortune cookie is not a fortune cookie without a fortune, it is just a plain old cookie, which isn’t any fun at all.

Where would the Israelite’s have been when they stood at the Red Sea without the power of God?  Moses could have stood for a week with his arm stretched over the Red Sea, but without the power of God to part it, the waves would have just continued to splash up on the shore as usual.

What would have happened to Daniel when he was thrown in the lion’s den without the power of God to protect him?  It would have been another day someone was eaten by the lions.

What would have happened on the day Jesus fed the 5000 with just five loaves and two fishes?  It would have been another ordinary day with plenty of hungry people.

I don’t have to live my life like an empty fortune cookie.  I can allow God to fill it with His love.  The power of God’s love gives me the strength to die to self and live for Him.  The power of God’s love allows me to seek the good God desires before the good I desire.  When I allow God to fill the emptiness of my life with the power of His love I come closer to living the love described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8,  “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”