God Uses Even Nasty Bananas

   This past Friday I gave the devotion at our FCA 5th Quarter.  It was last-minute orginization, but God had lain something on my heart two week ago.  By Friday at about 2:00, I knew exactly what I was going to share with 100 kids from my school.
   I started out by reading the story of the woman at the well.  Almost no one knew the story, but this was no where near the most exciting part of the night.  Read about the woman at the well for yourself in John chapter 4.

 

   Next I invited two friends to help me out - and they brought a banana.  As she unpeeled the banana, the first girl said, "We all have a protective outer layer that we try to use to cover up our screw-ups, stupidity, and sticky situations.  But it's still obvious that we aren't perfect." And then she slobbered on it.

 

   The banana was then passed to girl-in-the-middle, who talked about how God sees our messiness on the surface, but He still wants us to spill everything.  He isn't disgusted by us, and He still wants to go deeper into who we are.  And the saliva slid down the fruit in front of her, and she started to freak out a little, but she pulled herself together.  She took a bite off the already repulsive banana, and she spit it back out, and she put it into my hand.

 

   "God sees all of... this," I said, gesturing to the nastiness in my palm, "and still He doesn't reject us."  Father sees our lying, our cheating, and our disbelief.  He knows about every time we have hidden in the bathroom crying, every time we've said things we regret, and every time we've chosen someone else over Him.  I declared, "Even with all our grossness, God still accepts and forgives us.  He loves us anyway."  And I threw the banana in my mouth.  And the people lin the bleachers went crazy.  And it tasted nasty.  And it was all worth it to hear kids talking about Jesus for days after that. 

 

 

   To close out the night, I shared some of my story.  I told them about a month spent crying every day, a summer of hiding out in my room so that no one would know.  I worked so hard to make it seem that I was doing great, that I had no problems.  I tried so hard to fix myself, too ashamed to ask for help.  I couldn't do it.  I had to open up to the only One who could.  I had to tell Him that I wasn't perfect, that I couldn't live on my own.  I had to reveal my mushy, saliva-covered, revolting, true self.  I had to cry out to God, and ask for the living water.  God changed my life, transformed me, and made me a new creation.  To Him be the glory.

And this is me imitating how I felt with spit-infested banana in my mouth. :)