Rotten bananas. Stuart
Brogden, April, 2002
Rotten bananas. What goes through your mind when you hear that? Mushy, nasty tasting, sticky. Throw it away! Seeing it isn't much better.
How about a teaspoon of vanilla?
Or a cup of flour?
Big helping of vegetable shortening? Mmmmmm. Makes your mouth water, don't it? But you have to also consume a teaspoon of salt, a big pinch of baking soda, a few raw eggs. Top it off with a cup of sugar and a handful of pecans.
A tasty combination, right? Some items good, some vile. Especially them rotten, black, bananas.
But give these ingredients to the right person and you could have something truly delightful. In the hands of you or me, these items make a mess and waste a few dollars. But in the hands of a skilled chef, dead, stinking rotten bananas and all these other ingredients which are not good by themselves, come together - transformed into fresh, new banana nut bread.
Old bananas are gone, new bread is here! The baker takes dead, somewhat useless materials - adds personal attention and the right process - and brings forth something we can all appreciate.
But we don't get this delightful treat unless we take what is rotten, what is distasteful - and even what we think is good just as it is - and entrust them into the hands of the chef, who stirs them up - breaking up the hard parts and breaking down the crusty pieces, and submits them to a hot oven for the right amount of time.
And it's a fact known to the best bakers - the more rotten the banana, the better, more flavorful is the bread.
Each of these ingredients must lose its form and its very identity if it is to be useful to the baker. Nobody wants to bite into a piece of rotten banana; no one enjoys that mouthful of unmixed flour. When the bread is cooked just right, you know many of these ingredients are present, but none of them define the bread by itself. The individual characteristic of the bananas and each of the other ingredients has been changed by the cooking and is subdued such that the bread is what you taste. That's bread which is well done - and done well.
So it is with your life. Apart from Christ, your life turns rotten and starts to stink. Bits of it may be acceptable to you and others, but most of it is bitter or otherwise not fit to consume. No matter how hard you try, you cannot undo the process of rot that inevitably sets in.
Surrender the dark, stinking parts of your life - as well as the pleasant, good tasting parts - and allow the Chef to break you down, stir you into shape, and put you in the fire for a time that seems right to Him. Each piece of the process seems harsh, unnecessary, and takes too long. But we are the ones who managed our lives so well we were stinking up the joint, remember?
So the Master Chef follows His plan, His timeline, His processes. And when the Master Chef says to you, "Well done", you will be fit to enter into your rest - and join the choir of heaven as all creation worships the Lamb who was broken and bruised and crucified to please the Father so we might inherit life everlasting.
Your life is not so rotten that almighty God cannot transform you into a new creation that is pleasing in His sight. He is far more than able – do you trust Him?
Romans 5:20 "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound"
Matthew 26:26 "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body."
2 Corinthians 5:17-18 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ"
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation."