Chocolate Gravy & Bacon

     Every family has a family recipe that is passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes it is something that other families make but maybe in a different way. Sometimes it is something that other families wouldn't even eat. My family has one of those recipes. It is chocolate gravy. Over the years I have found very few other families that make chocolate gravy. I have found a few places that make chocolate gravy but it doesn't taste the same as my families. We either pour it over a biscuit or dip white bread in it. Some of us really get wild and add peanut butter in it to give it a different taste. My mom's chocolate gravy has gotten better over the years until it is as good as my grandmother's was. 

     There is another food that I really enjoy, bacon. It isn't a family recipe but I enjoy it like it is one. I have had bacon milkshakes, bacon gum, bacon flavored toothpicks, bacon cheeseburgers, bacon spread, bacon sundaes, bacon candy, bacon jelly, bacon cupcakes and
anything else I could get in bacon flavor. I like thick bacon, thin bacon, crispy bacon, chewy bacon and I even like cold bacon. Bacon is my go to food and I put it in anything I can. Bacon is my comfort food. 

     We did Christmas at my parents house the day after Christmas and we did a brunch. That means we had bacon and chocolate gravy. When I got my bowl of chocolate gravy I decided to dip bacon in it instead of bread. That way it would low carb. When I dipped my first piece of bacon into my chocolate gravy I thought to myself, two of my most loved foods are coming together to make my taste buds do the happy dance. I slowly put that piece of bacon covered in chocolate gravy into my mouth and it was everything I had hoped for and more. It was sweet, it was salty, it was delicious and it was amazing. I quickly followed up with another piece and another piece until all my bacon was sadly gone. 

      It is amazing what happens when you put two great things together. It is like when they put chocolate and peanut butter together, cupholders and recliners, phones and cameras and heavy metal music and Christian music, great things are formed. When you put two great things together you get something amazing. You get something that you never dreamed of and sometimes you get something that you find that you can't live without. That is the exciting part of combining great things. 

     As much as I enjoyed the chocolate gravy and bacon there is a better combination. It is prayer and Bible Study. Now, I know what your thinking, that is an odd combination. Out of all of the things we do as Christians why do I think that is the greatest combination? How is that better than praise and worship? How is that better than mercy and grace? How is that better than a pot luck dinner and an ice cream social on the same Sunday? Let's first look at them on their own to find out.

     Prayer, that is how we communicate with God. That is our direct link to His ears and His heart. It is one of the first things we learn to do when we become a Christian. It is what we do when we are hurting, when we are scared, when we are troubled and when we need help. It is part of our worship and our praise. It brings peace, comfort and healing. We can do it for others, they can do it for us and we can do it together. Prayer works and we can testify that it does. 

     Bible Study is how we learn about God, mercy, grace, salvation, praise, worship, faith, Jesus, healing, the Holy Spirit and all of the stories we love to talk about. It is how we learn to walk in faith, 
trust in Jesus, put on the Armor of God, and how we are to live like Christ. It is how we learn of the heroes of faith, how to walk through the Valley of Death, the wages of sin and the gift of salvation. Bible Study is something that if done right it will make you want to do it more. 

     Now where most people go wrong is they try to do Bible Study without prayer. You can do it but it is like eating turkey bacon. It may be close to the real thing but it isn't the real thing. People may tell you it tastes like the real thing but it don't really. Until you have had the real thing though, you don't know any better. You will learn somethings but you will not get the depth of what God is telling you. 

     So, here is how prayer changes Bible Study. When you study, pray that God will reveal things to you. John 14:26 tells us that the Comforter has come to teach us all things and to bring to our memory everything we have learned. When we pray before we study, as we study and after we study the words we study come alive. The words mean more than just what they say. They have deeper meanings and we can apply those to words to our life so that we can handle situations, get through valleys and to learn how to live as Christ. Prayer creates a hunger in us that makes us want to dig deeper into God's Word. The more it comes alive the more we want to study. 

     Here is the thing, Bible Study changes our prayer life too. As we study we learn what to pray for, how to pray, when to pray and what prayer can do for us. We don't pray for things that we shouldn't. We begin to seek His will and pray for things that will help us grow closer to Him. We pray more often and we pray with more power. Our prayer life begins to change us. We begin to wonder how we ever prayed without Bible Study. We begin to wonder how we ever studied the Bible without prayer. So if you want to improve your Bible Study, add prayer. If you want to improve your prayer life, add Bible Study. You will find that it is a greater combination than even chocolate gravy and bacon.