Love Has a Name

Throughout my journey of faith I have spoken to so many people who have desired Jesus but after embarking on a journey they encountered extreme challenges early on which left them disillusioned and feeling hopeless.

This is not news to many people and I myself have experienced this as well.

When I first began my journey toward Christ I got seriously hurt. I was attending weekly Church services for a mere 4 weeks when I went to my weekly volleyball match. I had played volleyball for nearly 15 years at that time and never experienced an injury such as this.

In a random moment during a match I landed on top of someone else’s foot and rolled my ankle. I went to the Emergency Room at my local hospital and was told “it’s just swollen you’ll be fine.” After several more days my leg, up to my knee, was swollen and I was in excruciating pain. Following 2 more trips to the hospital, x-rays and a CT scan I was told nothing new. The doctors all said to walk on crutches for 7-8 weeks, which left my leg in a state of muscular atrophy.

Keep in mind these are my first weeks exploring God and now I was taking harsh painkillers and essentially in a state of medically induced inebriation due to the pain and inflammation of my ankle and my leg.

Where was God I asked? I started exploring the goodness and love of Christ yet here I was with a swollen leg, no answers and a plethora of medication to “fix” the problem, which of course was only reducing the pain so I could sleep.

As it happens with God another set of circumstances led me to physiotherapy and ultimately I was healed, praise God for my body healing itself and the advice of those around me to seek alternate options for treatment.

But this story can reflect many others story, perhaps not with physical injury but in terms of new challenges, family issues, personal issues, financial issues or anything else imaginable. These obstacles also may present at the beginning or later on along our path.

I was recently praying for someone dear to me as God revealed the following to me.

Imagine faith in Jesus is a perfectly ripe, shiny, spotless apple. You look at it and everything inside you craves it, desires it and reaches out for it. Your mouth is watering and you can almost hear the sound of the apple crunch as you take a bite. The crisp red fruit cracks as your teeth cut into it and you are hit with a splash of juice from its goodness that God has endowed upon it.

But, that doesn’t happen. As you dig in and tear a piece out you taste that ugly, brown rotten spot.

What is your first reaction? If you’re able to you most likely spit it out and if not then you close your eyes and almost regretfully you swallow it.

Suddenly though, you take a look at the apple and notice the rest of it, or at least the majority of this delicious, fragile apple is beaming white and is still enticing your tastebuds. So you bite again and again until all the brown is gone.

How is this anything like faith in Jesus you ask?

Well I believe that faith in Jesus is often offered to people like that perfect fruit. We are told it’s the way to eternal life and God promises us goodness, happiness and joy. However once we get into it we realize it is really imperfect. The faith is presented as always good, always happy, always nice and without sacrifice and without suffering.

The faith is imperfect as a result of our brokenness but is made perfect through relationship in Jesus Christ. The “selling” of the faith to unbelievers is often done in a way that is not fully true and as delicate as it may be I believe to promise only a life of happiness is not as enticing as having God work with us through the storms. If we sell a faith in Jesus as a perfect life the expectation will almost always smashed to pieces. We are not promised an easy life in Christ we are only promised help through it.

We see the apple as the way away from our problems or as a way to avoid our negative life situations. Instead, Jesus promises us a way through them and not necessarily a way around them.

Our God, Jesus Christ, never promises us a squeaky clean red delicious apple. The promise of glory and a life free of pain comes only as a promise after we have been in relationship with him and once we have joined him in heaven with our Father. Before then each person is told we will have to sacrifice, face persecution and times of trouble, however the hope in Jesus comes as strength through these times and not as a way to avoid them.

The time we spend on earth is often times full of rotten brown spots. Furthermore, as we explore a faith in Jesus he will show us these uncomfortable brown spots and help us to bite them off and spit them out. Jesus walks with us through those hard times and doesn’t let us simply avoid the problem, Jesus fixes the problem.

I encourage everyone who is newly exploring a faith in Jesus to keep taking bites of that apple. Sometimes your apple might seem to have more brown spots than those around you but the promise of its nutrition and life giving properties are a promise and truth that results in a relationship with Jesus Christ. You will also never know how many brown spots your fellow brothers and sisters have already spat out before you met them.

Ironically the brown spots I face now I almost enjoy as it results in me depending on Jesus even more and more which causes me peace, joy and happiness despite the rotten bits.

And remember that when you ignore the apple, stop taking bites of it and let it whither the whole thing quickly turn brown.

James 1:12 NLT

¹² God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.