Is anything too hard for the LORD?
Genesis 18:14
Insight from the LORD sometimes comes from strange places. Several years ago I had the following encounter with a deflated marshmallow.
Have you ever seen a deflated
marshmallow? It is not a pretty sight—not
even the miniature kind. I opened a bag of the small, soft, white, air-filled
pieces of puff and popped a few into my mouth. When I looked down at my hand, something remained. At first I thought it was a piece of ragged
paper that had somehow gotten into the plastic bag. Upon closer inspection
I discovered that it was indeed a marshmallow without any puff; deflated like
someone had stuck a pin in it.
I began to think back trying to remember
if I had ever seen a deflated marshmallow. No. Never, I decided. It looked
almost like the unleavened bread used when taking communion at our church. I
held it in my hand for quite some time thinking that there must be some
significance to this airless unattractive marshmallow.
Then it struck me. That’s what the enemy
wants to do to us—deflate our airbag so to speak. Have you ever looked around
at Christians you know and thought to yourself, “Wow, they look happy,
altogether, full of life.” Why not me? Maybe Satan has let the air out of your
bag!
I left that piece of airless marshmallow
lay on the counter for a while as I contemplated its significance. Now some may
say this is way too much time to spend thinking about a marshmallow (especially
a miniature one) but hold on and stay with me.
A couple of days after laying the
marshmallow on the counter, I returned to look at it and think some more. When
I reached down to pick it up, it felt different than when I first rested it on
the counter. It had lost its softness. It was hard and dry and felt as if it
might break if not treated with care. Not wanting to destroy it before I had
completely understood what I was supposed to learn, I gently placed it back on
the countertop. Then I began putting the pieces together in my mind.
I was reminded of how Jesus is the Bread
of Life, the Living Water, the Breath of Life and how He is the only one that
gives our lives that effervescent fullness that makes life worth living and how
when we allow Him full control in our lives we stay soft, pliable, and moldable
like a puffy marshmallow. But, the enemy
prowls the land looking for those he can stick his pin in to let the air
out of our bags. We usually don’t see
the pin coming, but it is sharp and effective and before we know it, if we
aren’t prepared, we are deflated.
Not only do we become deflated, but often,
like that two days out of the bag marshmallow, we become dry and hard. We turn
away from the things of God instead of running toward them. We sequester
ourselves from fellowship with God’s people. We harden our hearts, and our
spirits become dry and brittle.
I wanted to see if I could rehydrate that
dried marshmallow so I turned on the faucet just enough to drip water over the
shriveled sugar. I’m sure you already know what happened. It turned into icky slimy goo! All the water did for the marshmallow was wash it away.
Bingo! That is what the Living
Water does for our deflated airbags—washes them clean, washes away the icky
slimy goo left by the pin prick of the enemy and refills us with the breath of
life. Unlike the marshmallow that can
never be refilled, revived, or remolded, we can be made alive when the living
breath of the Holy God breathes on us.
Wow I thought as I lifted my voice in
prayer for those I knew whose airbags were presently deflated, and I asked the
Father to allow His Holy Spirit to fill them and the Living Water to wash away
all the icky slimy goo that bogged them down when the enemy set his snare
for them. And I praised the Father that unlike that marshmallow there is hope
for me and for you. Hallelujah! After all, is anything to hard for the LORD?
I do have a piece of advice for anyone preparing
hot chocolate and marshmallows. If you plop your mouth full of those tiny
puffballs but find you have one remaining deflated marshmallow left on your
hand, and if you begin contemplating what that could mean, let me save you some
time and trouble. Throw it away! It probably just means that at some time you
shut the drawer on the bag and that poor lonely marshmallow was the one that
got in the way!
© JP 2013
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