Life and Lemons (Reflections on God's Goodness Part 1)

So, Matt and I have this friend, an amazing cook, who came to our house to prepare us a meal some time back. As he adeptly threw together one ingredient after another, he couldn't help but exude with joy over all of the ways that he saw God's goodness. "Lemons," he said; "don't we have a good God...One who would create lemons! They are so perfectly sour and yet you can't eat them without smiling."

And he's right. If you let yourself, you can become downright overwhelmed with the ways God is good, with the ways He has given us pictures of Himself, with life's pleasure that direct us to the giver of all good things! Yes, food was given for sustenance and sunlight for warmth, but there is more...

All creation points to our Creator and as we find pleasure in a good meal or a vibrant sunset we have the opportunity to find pleasure in the God of the Universe (and this is to His glory!) Us humans though, we can distort it...we can either say a that a meal is to meant only to meet our physical needs (although this doesn't quite explain why some foods are so pleasing to the senses!) or we can say that it is in the meal itself that we find ultimate pleasure and in gluttonous pursuit chase one meal after another, but this doesn't stop God from being good and holy and just and full of grace. In our brokenness, we will always take God's good things and distort them more than any carnival mirrors could, but in His grace toward us, God made a way through His Son Jesus Christ to be restored into right relationship with our Creator and a proper relationship with creation. We can sip a glass of lemonade on a hot day and know that it is more than quenching our thirst. It is for God's glory that the lemon is good and it is for His glory that we pleasure in the lemon's Good Creator.