Pomegranates

We have a produce business and one of the amazing things about it is the abundance of fresh fruits and veggies that we get to have every two weeks!  It is awesome the variety of things that God created for us to enjoy.  There is, however, a bit of work that goes along with this great thing.  With this leftover produce comes some work.  Sometimes I am not excited about that work when there is a lot left.  We have to cut, wash and freeze some to make sure it does not go to waste.  Last time we got Pomegranates and had some leftover.  A while back my daughter began to love them.  She would beg me at the store to get her one and she would take the time to clean out all those little seeds that I have seen described as pinkish red orbs filled with crunchy, juicy seeds (known as arils), bursting with flavor, which I think is a great description!  They are just that ~ bursting with flavor.  I later started to read in Numbers and remember noticing that there were a couple of verses that Moses chose to include the fruit pomegranate.  (Numbers 12:23 is one of them…Then they came to the valley of Eshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men, with some of the pomegranates and the figs.)  This fruit is mentioned 4 times in the bible (Numbers 20:5, Song of Solomon 4:13, Song of Solomon 8:2 are the other 3)  Before, I would have thought nothing of that word, but now that I had seen and tasted them (the few seeds that she would share) and saw the work that went into cleaning them out, I had a different appreciation for them.  So that just makes me think.  We are so used to everything at our fingertips.  You want something sweet or refreshing? Just look around.  It is right there in front of you at any store or restaurant you can choose from. (some healthy and some not so healthy)  Imagine back in biblical times.  A hot day ~ walking from place to place and they came upon a tree.  A tree full of fruit that when you break it open it has little bursts of flavor packed with nutrition to refresh you!  That must have been an amazing treat! (after all they did not have Dairy Queen)  God designed everything for a purpose.  This morning that fruit had a purpose for me.  We had many left from last produce day so it was time to figure out what to do with them to make room for the new stuff.  About half way though my task, I started thinking and something just hit me.  Those pomegranates are like our life.  Before Jesus ~ think of us like we are a pomegranate.  When he comes into our heart it is time to open up our lives, just like cutting open the pomegranate.  Then comes the work.  It does not really look pretty and you may not be looking forward to standing there and cleaning it all out, but that work will lead to those little bursts of flavor and to finding the good things in our life.  The easiest way get those seeds out is to put it in water and just break the fruit apart so those little seeds just drop out.  They fall to the bottom of the water.  The little pieces of the inside of the fruit rise to the top so that you can skim them off.  There is one more refining process in this and that is to get all the little pieces out and the ones that may not be good or not fully developed(Alexa said if there are little white seeds they are NOT good!)  This to me is how you can think of baptism.  When you enter that water you open up to God and shed all that bad and you are cleansed.  When you come out of that water you are clean and all you are left with is the promises of God.  It does take work though to dig into those years of mistakes, hurts, fears and negative things and be left with the Godly traits that he wants us to have, just like it takes time to break apart all those little pods of seeds and get every little yummy seed hiding.  Galatians 5:22-23 says but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  That is what we should strive to be left with when all the junk in our life is cleaned out ~ we are left with only the sweet stuff, those bursts of joy in our life like those little bursts of flavor from those Pomegranates that God made for a purpose.  The rest can be discarded, just like the waste from the fruit.  Gone but not forgotten.  You will never forget the work that it takes, but you can discard it from your life.  He created everything and everyone for a purpose.  Find yours this year and put him at the center of it.  It does not promise to be an easy road but it does promise to bring some great rewards.  Revelations 22 makes it a point to say that on that day when you reach heaven, next to the river of life there is a tree that will bear twelve crops of fruit.  Wonder what kind of fruit that will be?  I can bet that it will be something amazing that will taste better than anything you have ever tasted in your life on this earth.  I, for one, can not wait for those promises to be fulfilled.