This week for ministry I’ve been helping the ladies in the kitchen. From cleaning, to preparing vegetables, to sorting through rice…and God has shown me some pretty cool things in this time. The ladies seriously take so much time to prepare amazing meals for us. They could totally just give us cereal every morning, sandwiches for lunch, and something for dinner. Instead, they prepare meals like fresh corn tortillas with eggs for breakfast, fried chicken with rice and beans, and potatoes for lunch, and a nice meal for dinner. Everything they make is fresh, nothing processed. Not only do they cook here for us, but they go home to their families and cook even more. Dang. To me that’s amazing. They work full time and they don’t mess around. This reminds me of how Jesus works. He is certainly not cheap, and certainly takes His time working in and through us. When He created you, He didn’t just take a little bit of time, He elegantly and exquisitely worked on you. Just look at the Earth around you. The beauty around us is enough to know that God doesn’t mess around. He’s good and He’s beautiful, and if we have been created in His image, we are stinkin’ beautiful. Just like those meals. They are so good.
“Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him.” Proverbs 8:30
“I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are Your works; and that my soul knows right well.” Psalm 139:14
Now, even though God has made us beautiful, sometimes we put junk inside where it doesn’t belong; pride, selfishness, anger, lust, etc. God longs for us to be pure and clean, rejoicing in Him and the person He intended us to be. He creates us to be set apart. As I was sorting through rice this week, God showed me again how hard He works on us. One of the women here told me that sometimes when they buy the rice from the store, it comes with random pieces of things that don’t belong in it. So they take it home and sort through it to clean it before it can be cooked. There was a lot of rice to go through, and sometimes the junk was hard to see. Most of the time, the junk was hiding and I had to dig super deep to find it and take it out. When I think about it, a lot of times, that’s what happens to us. We allow junk into our lives, and we keep it there. But in order for us to be used by God, we must allow Him to take out the junk. Sometimes it’s painful, but God brings beauty from pain. Let me tell you, the rice tastes much better without that junk in it. How much better would our lives be if we let God take out the junk?
“Who can understand his errors? Cleanse You me from secret faults.” Psalm 19:12
God is good, and He is able.
