Are You Picking The Ripe Tomato?

People are always looking on the outside but in the inside we’re all the same. One heart beat created by our creator formed and loved in our mother’s womb (psalm 139). If that’s true then why does society have a say on how we look? We let the world & society define us stealing our freedom. We loose sight on our identity- who we were made to be. Are you living for the world? Wound up and corrupted by the broken cultural? Living for Jesus in a broken culture and in messed up world will have you hated. In John 15:18 Jesus himself says “if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” If the world hates you why would you live for Jesus, it’s gonna be messy? Well simply because he chose you! You see Jesus didn’t say it was going to be the easy route, but it will for sure lead you to the eternal one. 

 

The other day we were harvesting tomatoes I thought my job was to pick only the ripe tomatoes, but I was mistaken. One of the workers came over and with his little bit of English and my little to nothing Spanish skills I understood that I needed to also pick the tomatoes that were yellowish, the small ones, and even the green ones with some red on it. I realized that my eyes were only on the “good” ones or the ones that looked ready to devour. How many times do we do this in our life? Looking only for the ripe, the ready, & the right? It hit me as I was holding a hand full of disfigured tomatoes, “it doesn’t matter”. The world says “you’re too tall, to short, to ugly, not the right fit”, but the truth is none of that truly matters. In fact the lord calls you beloved, chosen, cherished, so why would anything else need to matter? (Colossians 3:12).

In high school I ran cross country for a couple of years one of the best times were conditioning practice on Fridays. After we did our normal routine we all met back on the football field to play ultimate frisbee. Per usual there’s captains who chooses who they want on their team. I started to realize after a good while that they always go from the top athletes to the ones who barley made it on the team. What they’re eager for is to win, so why not pick the right people for the job? I believe that’s the wrong idea. It doesn’t matter your talent or how gifted you are you can still win and overcome any obstacle. There’s a guy named Simon in the Bible, who later became Peter. Him & his brother Andrew where fishing, casting their nets multiple times catching nothing but water, having no faith. Jesus then went over and told him to cast his net once more Simon responded with some sass “we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.” Once he laid his net down fish came flooding in. Then Jesus told them to let down their net to follow him, for they were to go fish for men. Simon had no faith, but god still wanted to use him. You don’t have to be gifted to follow Jesus. 

 

We tend to choose into the ripe, what’s ready right in front of us. What we see in Gods word is He doesn’t necessarily chose the ripe in fact He chooses the broken. We see this in Paul’s life. Before Paul became Paul an apostle who was sharing the word of Jesus everywhere he was persecuting Christians. His name was Saul. God turned a man who was having people either thrown in jail or killed for believing in Jesus to a man who was proclaiming the Gospel. You aren’t “to far gone”, the mess that you call your life doesn’t faze God. He can use you if you let him. Scars, tears, bruises all of it. I realized just like these tomatoes you’re still viable. 

 

Our first week in Ecuador we spent the week at our host families home where the lord surprisingly taught me a lot. One thing I found joy in during the race that I never thought I’d ever is washing some dishes! You can ask my parents I always threw my stuff in the sink and then ran to hide. At our hosts home I ended up finding my way to the kitchen picking up a sponge and going at it. As I was speeding through the process I found a plate that was cracked. I asked our host if he wanted me to throw it away, however his response through me by surprise, “even though it’s cracked we can still use it”. In that very moment a light bulb went off “that’s how Jesus sees us!” Even if we’re cracked, messy, and through all of our scars He will and can still use us. Jesus proclaimed that we will do greater works than Him, why would he say that? It’s because He loves us and through His grace we’re able to abundantly great things in his name (John 14:12). God will equip the unequipped. I was humbled and fortunate to hear how God transformed a man just like he did with Saul. I have been given permission to share this testimony. Borris the founder of Dunamis, shared how the lord saved him. Dunamis is the ministry we are partnering with where they rescue girls who have been human trafficked. Boris and I were trying to figure out the big question we always ponder on – “why did God pick us?”. Borris was eleven years old when he was kicked out of his home leaving him with nothing. Living on the street on a cardboard box with news paper in his clothes to keep warm, having nothing. Him and his 35 friends trying to survive the only thing that made sense was to rob people. Months went by as he lived this lifestyle all of sudden things changed drastically in his life. Instead of waking up on the street one day when he opened his eyes he was in a hospital not knowing how he got there, experiencing fatal conditions. In the midst of that fear there was an American couple who brought him in and raised him as their own. Through this time in his life he met Jesus. I’m sharing this with you all because you can certainly start from nothing, be nothing, and experience nothing to a life that sets you free, experiencing the goodness of God. So why us? It’s because the Lord loves his children deeply. 

 

No matter how disfigured your life is you can still serve a great purpose. I’m going to take this comparison to another level. Are lives before Jesus are deformed, truly a wreck but because Jesus meets us with grace and because what he did for us on the cross we can be saved. From this truth we can go from bruised to ripe. No matter who you are or what you’ve done you are able to feed people with this truth sharing His word. So are you going to keep looking for the “ripe tomato choosing into the worldly lens or will you choose into the one who doesn’t care what kind of tomato you are? 

Leave a comment below & let me know what you think and where your heart lies. Love ya’ll!