Every single time I make banana bread and I look at those blackened, weepy, limp bananas, I think, “This will be the time that this won’t work. There is no way this mess can be useful anymore, they are too far gone.”
And each time I pull that freshly baked loaf of bread out of the oven, I smile. In the right hands, the rotting fruit has been made sweet, the dying has been given new life. The thing neglected, was used for good. Nothing was wasted.
Isn’t that just like what our Redeemer does for us?
I think of Job. One moment, affluent and comfortable, and the next destitute and sitting in the dust. His children and livelihood were snuffed out, and all that remained was a scoffing wife and critical friends. If there was ever an ugly situation where I would be tempted to wonder, “How could anything good come from this?” this would be it.
BUT GOD.
He has a pattern of taking the freewill of man, and the consequences of actions, and redeeming them for His perfect purpose.
He brought good when His close companion left their final meal to bring a blood thirsty mob back to arrest Him.
He brought good when a baby was saved from national genocide to grow into the liberator of Israel from Egypt.
He brought good when a pagan widow found a place in a family in the lineage of the Messiah.
He brought good when a man’s youngest son was sold by his brothers to the only man in a distant country who would be able to save his family from famine one day.
He brought good when a giant fish swallowed the messenger of salvation who was sent to a city of murderous and evil citizens.
In the beginning He took nothing and made everything.
So rest assured, He can take your sorrows and create Glory for Himself.
There can be a fruitful future for anything, even brown bananas.
What was once cast off can now be brought to the table.
The hard to swallow can become sweet.
WHAT A HOPE!
Kate Foster
ARH Staff Writer
“For of him, and through him, and to him, [are] all things: to whom [be]
glory for ever. Amen.”
-Romans 11:36
“I [am] the LORD: that [is] my name: and my glory will I not give to another…”
-Isaiah 42:8
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