God & Grapefruit

Everyone knows: All grapefruit is ugly. If you stop at the skin, grapefruit is a puckered, warty, mustard-colored sponge blob. 
But last week I sliced it open and found out that some grapefruit is also ugly on the inside. This particular grapefruit was a disproportionate amount of white, bitter flesh and a minuscule amount of fruit – that appeared dry. Staring at it, I resigned myself to eating it, an ugly, dry, shrunken masquerade of a grapefruit. 
And then I tasted it. Wow! What flavor, sweet and tangy, not bitter.
How often, I thought, do we look at the situations of life and stop at the obvious. God, that’s hard and ugly. I don’t want it. Illness. Death. Loss of a job. Strife in a relationship. 
We regularly just resign ourselves to our circumstances. We look to God, hands on hips and say: Just get me through this until you have something good to give me. Cure this sickness. Make the pain go away. Provide a better job, with more money.
And most of us stop there. But it’s only when we stop and taste and see that the Lord is good do we experience the sweetness of what He desires for us in those ugly seasons of life. Comfort by His Spirit. Wisdom through our struggles. Healing in our pain. Hope by the proving of His promises. 
Even in the terrible parts of life, our God is good. He knows the tearing of a parent’s heart. The crushing of a world scarred by sin. The confusion of being betrayed. He understands suffering and still He works through it to bring good for His children.
Think about that next time you see a grapefruit.

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