Red Currants in the Pulpit

The kitchen was full of fruit. I was getting ready to preserve some of the wonderful gifts of the garden that we were blessed with in the summer.

One of the first steps to make sure that this procedure succeeds is to clean the fruit and to eliminate any that are blemishy, along with any foreign material that might have got mixed up with it.

When washing fruit - be it red currants, strawberries or plums - I have often noticed how easy it is to spot the imperfect ones as soon as I put them into water. A different colour, maybe a bit brown or suspiciously soft etc. - the water reveals the state of things. Also, any straw, leaves, bits of branch etc. come to the surface and float. Quite easy to pour off, most of it anyway.

Sometimes God allows us to come into the waters of testing. Is he trying to see what we are like? Would he like to select and eliminate, because he would like to preserve us for the future?

Don't forget, however - the hand that purifies is also the hand that preserves. In contrast to fruit, our fate is not to be mercilessly disposed of if we are found wanting in any way. God's glorious purpose and intention really is to preserve - to save and to keep. If we allow him to take us, blemishy fruits, in hand, then he is actually able to renew us, to give us a future and a hope so that we might not have to share the fate of substandard fruit.

Aniko Williams

Illustrated by Klara Pap

"When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you." (Isaiah 43,2)

When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow. For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

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