The Berries

Sometimes it's no accident that you wake up way before your alarm.  Sometimes there is a reason - and this morning I awoke to check Facebook.  Lo and behold I was not alone in the wee hours of this day!   A dear friend was also awake and that gave us a few precious moments to chat.  The topic - relationships.  It's funny how sometimes the fallout from the most toxic relationships can actually encourage the forming of some of the most precious genuine friendships.

This subject has been coming up over and over lately.  Maybe it's the holidays - they bring out the worst in people it seems.  So many hurtful things happen and not just from strangers!  We really have to work hard to keep from becoming corrupted by it.  Then all that junk has to be amplified even more by evil in this world.

Sometimes you just wonder - how in the world does God love that horrible person as much as He loves me?  or does He, really?  Does God have favorites and does He turn His back on people sometimes?

I believe He does.  I believe He loves even the evil ones as much as He loves His faithful.....  HOWEVER, His definition of love goes far beyond what we as humans can understand.   Obviously - how else could He give His son for us?  We could never do that.  He knows our limitations but we don't understand His capacity.  That being said, I do not believe He condones evil and I do believe that there is a point that He will turn away from us.

  I also believe He has favorites - and that all depends on our own efforts to establish a relationship with Him.  It's like how we have best friends, friends and acquaintances.  Our favorites are those who are closest to us - who make the effort to stay in touch, spend time with us, love us.  We know who our nearest and dearest are - just as God does.  It's up to us to make the effort with Him - because He always there, waiting on us.

The whole subject reminds me of strawberries.  I love me some strawberries!  The problem with strawberries is that they have a tendency to go bad - quickly - sometimes even before you get them home from the store!  Sometimes you can see the moldy part and remove the berry before it contaminates the whole batch.  But sometimes the moldy berry is in the middle and before you know it, the whole carton has gone bad.  Occasionally, you can trim of the moldy part and there is still a lot of good berry left but sometimes its a total lost cause.  If there is even one good berry left in the batch, I get it out of the carton quickly!  I wash it  off, take off the stem and savor every juicy bite.  

This may be a bad analogy but I think God sees His faithful as those good berries and savors us.  The moldy ones He has to discard - and it makes Him sad because he also loves Him some berries.  What's even more sad about the berries is that it just took the one nasty one in the middle to contaminate so many good ones....  the good ones never even did anything wrong - they just got put into the carton with a bad one and it was that totally random selection that went incredibly, painfully wrong.

This world is much like a carton of berries.  Lots of mold happening.  Sometimes we get picked out of the carton and kept safe but sometimes we can't escape it.  If we get mold on us - all is not lost.  God can trim it off and still use what's left of us and even restore us back to whole.

Relationships are the same way.  If we get picked out of a carton and separated from a bad relationship we should be glad we were saved from the mold and decay.  No need to even look back at the toxic environment - rise above and be the bright red berries we were meant to be!  Let God deal with the decay.  Whether He throws them out or cuts off their bad spots is between God and that other person. 

Another way I see this is based on the scripture in Genesis 18.   God tells Abraham He wants to destroy Sodom. 

²² The men turned and started toward Sodom. But the Lord stayed with Abraham, ²³ who asked, “Lord, when you destroy the evil people, are you also going to destroy those who are good? ²⁴ Wouldn’t you spare the city if there are only fifty good people in it? ²⁵ You surely wouldn’t let them be killed when you destroy the evil ones. You are the judge of all the earth, and you do what is right.”²⁶ The Lord replied, “If I find fifty good people in Sodom, I will save the city to keep them from being killed.”

This same question goes back and forth between God and Abraham until Abraham gets down to 10.  God promises that if He finds even 10 good people in Sodom He will not destroy it.

This example here inspires me.  Maybe we are living in a Sodom today but I still believe in good.  I still see it every day even in spite of all the evil.  I will continue to seek it, believe in it and BE it.  Even when I am treated poorly, I can still react with goodness.  I may be mistreated in one moment but in another I find a kind soul, a goodhearted person or have genuine loving interactions that completely counteract the negative one I had earlier in the day.  That will be my focus.  That will be how I get through all the bad happening around me both personally and globally.  That will be how I stay fresh and avoid the mold in this crazy world -  until I get to the place where a berry can just be a berry and not worry about decay.