What’s in your salad bowl and is worth sharing?
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. James 1:17 (NASB)
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
As I stood in the kitchen this morning wondering what I would have for lunch, I decided to make a salad. After consideration, I determined that I would make a mammoth salad for the entire staff.
As I chose each ingredient, perusing carefully not to include in this glorious salad fruits and vegetables that may have overstayed their welcome in the fridge a little too long or had ripened too much I used my most discerning eye.
Understanding that I could not use those vegetables or I could trim them as close as I could to the bad part, risking using stuff that was not the best.
In making that salad, with each piece put into it I wondered how this meal would nourish the bodies of my family members and workers. I thought about how with each ingredient God cared for it and allowed it to grow and mature as He had chosen and now it was my turn to make the best use of those things.
Now as I put what God had made into a bowl it dawned on me whether they would enjoy this with the understanding and appreciation of what I was going through to prepare the salad for them.
Would they welcome the care and selection of what I put in there; what I was thinking as I prepared it?; I really gave it some deep consideration.
And then it came into my recollection: “how many times had I turned my back and not appreciated, yet I enjoyed what God has made for us?
The time, the dedication, the choice, the ingredients are His choosing. All of His meticulous work that He put into preparing our lives for us and yet we turn and walk away. We make choices not based upon His consideration but what we want to do.
At that moment our salad bowls are being filled with withered vegetables, rotten fruit and tasteless endings.
Looking at my life now I try to envision a healthy bowl of salad with the variety of ingredients made by God’s hands, mixed by God’s instructions to me.
Growing older and seasoned with wisdom, my mixed salad consists of ‘fruits of the spirit’ served in a ‘golden bowl of life. This makes it possible for me to serve others a choice meal pre-prepared by the Devine Chef.
“Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed;” Ecclesiastes 12:6 (NASB)
Now I ask you, “What’s in your salad bowl and is it fit to be served to others?”
“Most gracious God, we thank You for the ingredients that You have given us bountifully and we pray that You allow us to make the right choice in preparing those ingredients to serve to others to lead them to Your table in Jesus name amen.”
GOD USES ONLY HIS CHOICE INGREDIENTS TO SERVE OTHERS
