A friend of mine baked a nice hot pie and delivered it to the house of a grieving family. She was surprised no one came to the door when she knocked, but assumed the family was at the funeral home making arrangements, so she let herself in and left the pie on the breakfast table.
As she drove away from the house, she passed the house where the grieving family ACTUALLY lived. It dawned on her: she just walked into a stranger's house and left a fresh baked pie!
Faced with such a dilemma, most of us would have kept that a secret, gone back home, baked another pie, and delivered it to the right house. But not DeAnna.
She went back to the "wrong" house where she left the pie. This time, she didn't even knock. She walked in and went to the breakfast table to get the pie.
But it was gone! She panicked. Was she in ANOTHER wrong house? No. THIS is the table she left the pie on. She began looking around without ever deducing that the missing pie was a strong indication that someone in this house was HOME!
The oven was on. The little red light was glowing. She opened the oven and found her pie! Someone in the house found the pie she left and put it in the oven to warm it up! Did they question how the pie got there? Did they search the house for the Pie Fairy?
Just then DeAnna heard a toilet flush. Though most of us would not be in this position to begin with, we certainly at this point, would run like the wind...right? Not DeAnna.
She grabbed the pie...and, with dignity and grace, walked out as if she were returning to her own home for a set of forgotten keys. She got back into her car and out of the driveway before any crazed residents came running out the door.
DeAnna successfully delivered the warm pie to the right house straight from the wrong house. On her way home, she began thinking about the poor soul who came back for a pie that was no longer there.
A verse of Scripture comes to mind: "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away..." (Job 1:21).
Put yourself in the house slippers of the old man who lived alone in that house of the appearing and disappearing pie. You get out of bed, walk into the kitchen, grab the milk from the fridge, and saunter over to the breakfast table. There sits a freshly baked home-made pie. You rub your eyes and it's still there.
There's no note. No one else is in the house. No cars are in the driveway. No one you know would make you a pie, enter your house, and leave it on your table.
What are your options? You could question your sanity, deny the existence of the pie as a figment of your imagination, and go back to bed. Or you could tally the existence of the pie up to a cosmic accident where a series of tasty molecules collided and burped out a pie.
Or you could believe that the existence of the pie meant the existence of a pie maker. Even though you don't see the pie maker or know who the pie maker is or where she came from, you know that she exists. You don't know who to thank or how this delicious gift got here, but by golly, it's a pie and it's going in the oven!
Which option makes the most sense? Even if you didn't know DeAnna's story. Even if all you knew was what the owner of the wrong house knew. You would still believe someONE caused this to happen, not that someTHING just randomly happened. The existence of a pie means the existence of a pie maker.
The world we live in is ten billion times more intricately designed than the best pie. There cannot possibly be a design so magnificent without a magnificent Designer. Yet no matter how much sense that makes, we can't teach it to our kids in school.
As for the second half of the story...if you are that same old man who found the pie and you put it in the oven to warm it up while you ponder the mystery of the pie in the "thinking room" of your house, and then come back to find the oven empty --- then it would be pretty easy to convince you that there's a devil, too! But that's another story...
Knows Who to Thank,
Perry Crisp
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