Corona Devo 1662

Can you remember eating watermelon as a kid?  Okay, now picture the actual watermelons from when we were young.  They were huge!  Long, heavy, rounded-cylinders of green rind striped with darker green, and filled with the pink flesh of sweet watermelon, and lots and lots of hard, black seeds.

It's rare (for me) to find a watermelon like that these days.  In fact, I rarely think about it, or even try.  We buy the short ball-shaped watermelons that they sell now-a-days.  Their seeds are blond-colored and soft.  There's no watermelon-spitting-contests with the "new" watermelons, that's for sure.  The seeds are just different, and so the shape and size and even the taste of the watermelons these days are different.  That's just how it is.

Except today my husband came home from work with a huge, heavy watermelon, the likes of which I have not seen since I was little!  It felt like it weighed twenty pounds.  I actually think it did.  

When I cut it open, black seeds were tucked into the fruit, and you would not believe how juicy it was!

The melon was huge, and so I cut half of it up, and then we had to stop to eat dinner.  

Afterwards, when it was time for me to go back to the chopping board, I noticed and heard something at the same time: a steady stream of watermelon juice flowing over two sides of the counter where the watermelon lay cut wide open.  

The juice was exorbitant!   

The watermelon was huge, and the amount of watermelon juice within it was unlike anything I have seen.  It just flowed and overflowed!  I knew it would be a sticky mess to clean up, but it was amazing all the same that such a large volume of juice was free-flowing from that big, ripe, luscious fruit.  

~~~

We have a God just like that. 

If we will come to Him, accept Him, repent to Him, love Him and live for Him...the juice of His plan and blessing for us will run down our elbows and drench our lives!  

Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts!  We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple...

(11) You crown the year with your bounty,  and your carts overflow with abundance.  (12) The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness.  (13) The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing.  Psalm 65:4, 11-13  

~~~

The ways of the world and the pleasures of the flesh are cheap hybrid-forms of the bounty and fulfillment that God has for us.  Like the little round watermelons that are "seedless", the world seeks to remove God and His intentions for us, and then there is no way that we can fully become/enjoy/fulfill all that God has planned for us.  We need the real thing, and that is Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and our Heavenly Father.  

They are the One True Source.  Every other angle and idol that we seek as a shortcut will not be the real deal or the real answer for us.  But if we will pursue God and His goodness, then look out, because when we open the door to Him, He comes rushing in to our hearts and lives.

"Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them."  ~John 7:38        

~~~

And sometimes we are the counterfeit version of all that we could be in Christ.  

We hold back.  We hold out.  We sell out.  We want to be in control of how much of ourselves we give to God.  Of how much time/schedule/finance/treasure we give to God.  

But the ironic and iconic thing about Our Lord is that we'll never outgive Him, and if we would just give Him the reins: He'll take us on the ride of our life:

• Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (8) And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.   ~2 Corinthians 9:7-8    

• Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.  ~Malachi 3:10             

~~~

So today, let's put the short, squatty, "new and improved" but not-half-as-juicy-as-the-original version of life back on the shelf.  And let's go back to the original plan: the big, juicy, overflowing one.  Just us and God, and His plans for us with Him today.  Here's a hint: they're juicy.  

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, (21) to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  ~Ephesians 3:20-21

Blessings,

sarah

https://sarahsundy04.blogspot.com