I like green salads. I like the varieties of ingredients that go into making a salad. Most green salads contain loads of healthy ingredients that are good for the body. The great thing about salads is that you can be as creative with them as you want.
I remember watching videos of babies tasting various types of vegetables from salads and the faces they would make because the taste of those vegetables was not necessarily what they expected, or they didn’t like it!
I’ve also seen where babies were given an ingredient in a salad, like a slice of apple, and their little faces would light up with excitement as they motioned with their little hands that they wanted more!
Using this analogy of green salads, how many of us want to pick and choose the aspects of God’s word that suits our fancy but discard the parts that cause us growing pains.
Growing pains are very real and they don’t “feel” good.
King David wrote in Psalms 119:71, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”
Also, in Romans 5:1-5, it says, Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope: 5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
Finally, in Acts 20:27, Paul in his farewell to the Ephesians states, “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.”
It is important that we desire and seek to know ALL of God’s counsel and not be just satisfied with the parts that feel good or speak of only the parts we want to hear. We must equally be willing to endure the not-so-enjoyable parts that stretch us and cause us discomfort. It is in that stretching process where God is working on our spiritual muscles and positioning us to be victorious in every situation.
“Wisdom is the principal thing; THEREFORE, get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7
This is Leslie Eaddy Brooks, Think About It.
Leslie Eaddy-Brooks 