Dear Good Shepherd and friends,
Our daughter Stella likes to make things. She especially likes to make lemonade and orange juice. Fresh lemons or oranges, water, and some sugar. Three ingredients. She's not bad at it, either. The kitchen counter is usually left a sticky mess, but it's a fine trade for fresh OJ or lemonade.
The other day, it was orange juice. We had been given an abundance of oranges, and so she saw an opportunity. In order to get the juice from the oranges, she sometimes uses a hand-held citrus squeezer. It's a helpful gadget that compresses a lemon, lime, or orange, and it has holes to squeeze out the juice, but keep any seeds. Pretty nifty tool, if you ask me.
Well, this kitchen tool sometimes is not big enough for large lemons or most oranges. And if the citrus fruit is too large, it won't squeeze down, and if it won't squeeze down on the orange, then no juice. Or, if you're lucky, you'll get some juice, but not the maximal amount.
Stella encountered that problem with an orange the other day as she made OJ. As she was cutting the orange in half to put into the citrus squeezer, I noticed the size of the orange and pointed out the potential issue to her. From my perspective it was pretty clear: the orange will not fit. It won't work.
In her confidence, she refused to see things this way.
It wasn't just mere stubbornness (which happens). It wasn't to defy dad's suggestion (which happens).
She simply saw possibility, and she refused to accept otherwise.
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Is this not how God works?
God refuses to accept what often seems to us to be not possible or "just the way it is." There is possibility for the good stuff to be experienced in and through everything.
Now, this is not "everyone is good" or "everything is fine." Sometimes our "everyone/everything is good" cultural mentality is nothing more than avoiding reality. God does not avoid reality. God is more realistic than we.
But, God does not accept the current reality as it is, either.
Story after story in the Bible we encounter a God who works with whatever people do. Consider:
- Mess up the whole world project by trying to be like God, as Adam & Eve did? God refuses to accept this new reality works to right the ship through the very human people who messed things up.
- Blow it and give away your inheritance to your brother who tricked you, like Jacob and Esau? God takes it and creates blessing anyway.
- Maybe your life spirals out of control because of family deceit and hate, and everything crashes down, like it did for Joseph. You're sitting in a prison cell of sorts because of things other people have done to you. That's fine. Not fun, but God turns things around and the worst circumstances actually lead to blessing for an entire country through Joseph. You just wait...
- Maybe you have refused to acknowledge God's presence in your life (God's own people). Maybe you have rejected Jesus (Peter, Paul) or hated God (Jonah). No matter. You can't offend God. God will bring about goodness anyway, and likely through your life.
The Biblical stories illustrate one clear point: God refuses to accept that what seems to us to be a mess, or unusable life, is worthless.
It's not that God is not realistic.
Quite the opposite. Stella was realistic. Once I pointed out the dilemma to her about the orange, she recognized it. But instead of "it's no good, it won't work," she saw otherwise. And she made what seemed like an unusable orange usable. She figured out how to get the good stuff from that orange with the squeezer, and then she even got another juicer to get the rest -- one that was bigger for an orange to fit.
This is characteristic of God throughout the Biblical story. God sees your reality, often better than you do. But God never throws something out as unusable because it doesn't "fit" some preconceived idea of things.
God will extract the good stuff from our lives, no matter what. And the world will be blessed because of it. There is goodness in damaged, not-fitting, not ideal circumstances, families, and people.
Often people might think, "I'm not a good enough Christian." God doesn't have a "good enough" category like we do. That's our culture talking. Not God. Have you read the stories in the Bible? God's not looking for all the "right looking" apples to display at the grocery store.
This doesn't mean go ahead and not care because God doesn't care. The point is different.
The point is that Christianity is not about this. Christianity is about realism. Christianity actually allows you to be real: to embrace the realism that no one is without a scar. Everyone is damaged goods. This is no excuse to just not care.
Instead, this is a call to the realism of God: that God will bring good stuff from your life anyway. You don't have to live up to some standard to be accepted by God, and even more startlingly, to be someone God actually thinks contributes to his presence in this world.
It is this reality that will bring you up to a new level of human living. Not your efforts or your own perceived "goodness." It's the goodness of God active in your life that turns your life into the good stuff. And don't be deceived into thinking that the good stuff has to look or feel a certain way. Broken lives, prison cells, and failures are all environments where the good stuff grows.
So, maybe adjust your view, dear reader. Refuse to let perceived inadequacies determine possibility. Because God sees otherwise. Where we might think about ourselves or others: doesn't fit, won't work, not good enough, or some other such nonsense, God says, "Who says?" God says, "I don't see the problem you see. I see the potential; I see the good stuff, and I refuse to accept the conclusion that your life is 'unusable'."
In defiant hope,
Pastor Kyle
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