Strawberry Salvation

If you were on the streets of downtown Carthage headed to the Tanglewood area this morning around 5AM and saw a big blue Hummer driving extra carefully, like precious cargo was on board...there was! I WAS GIFTED WITH CATESA STRAWBERRIES!!!  The breakfast of champions is on the way!

Isn't it funny how something can be one way and then when it is compared in the light of something else, it seems completely different, maybe even not as good. Take this breakfast of champions, for example. What you see in the picture is yummy, buttery, old fashioned oats with the tiniest mound of melting brown sugar. Nestled next to the bowl is beautiful, fresh, unadorned strawberries. These strawberries need no sugar...nothing. They are almost like eating candy straight out of the carton. I saved them for last, like breakfast dessert. I don't really eat sugar for health reasons. So a good ripe strawberry for me is just like a sugary treat. After enjoying the oatmeal and the beautiful morning, I take the first bite of strawberry. The juice dripped down my chin. It was sweet but as it hit my full scope of taste buds it wasn't as sweet as I remembered the first three I ate in the car on the way home (yes, I ate dirty strawberries on the way home. If you haven't had strawberries from Cetesa Farms you just don't understand.) As I kept eating them the sweetness came through. 

The problem wasn't that that one strawberry was bad, or less sweet than its delectable brothers and sisters. What had occurred was that I ate it immediately after eating buttery, sweet oatmeal. Compared in the light of something else, it seemed completely different, maybe even sour.

As I study, I am taken to the letter written by James, the half brother of Jesus, written to new followers of Christ. James was a "Johnny-come-lately to following the Lord. But, seriously, who wants to take notice that their brother is the Son of God. I mean really. Can you imagine the dinner table at report card time? "James, Jude, your brother Jesus is behaving much better at school than you are. Why can't you be more like Jesus?" I get it. But when James figured it out, he figured it out HARD! And his words in the letter sometimes seem hard. He writes with an urgency for people to be saved, live saved and let their lives show their salvation. But James starts out his letter with this statement, "when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing."  We grow in Joy when we persevere through what is giving us hard a time. Pushing through the initial sour experience gets us to the sweet spot in the new situation. James was writing to Jews that had been scattered far away from their home base. They were forced to live in a new situation, in new lands with new ways. Talk about a growth curve! But they pushed. Apparently most of them found what may have seemed like elusive joy. It was there the whole time, it just didn't seem as good when compared to what they had been experiencing before. Thank goodness they persevered for without them and those that pushed through after them, we might have never come to know the same sweet salvation of Jesus Christ.

Today:

• Consider it All Joy - stop comparing to what was
• Consider joining me and my friends for the Count it All Joy Bible Study (message me if interested)
• Consider what you are shying away from because it seems too hard
• And remember, I am praying for you