Have you ever eaten a canned peach? They’re pretty good right? My kids enjoy them so much that they even fight over the left over juice. Canned peaches come in very handy during the colder months, when a variety of fresh fruit is much harder to come by.
I like canned peaches, but the other day I was peeling a fresh peach for my daughter and I was thinking about canned peaches. Have you ever thought about the difference? Canned peaches and fresh peaches don’t even seem like the same thing. They have very different flavors. I am sure it has to do with the canning procedure, but whatever the reason, it changes the flavor and makes them different.
But not only are they different, they also just aren’t as good. There is something really wonderful about eating a big, juicy, fresh peach, with the juice running down your face. You know what I’m talking about! Canned peaches are pretty good, but they pale in comparison to the real thing.
Imagine if all you ever knew was canned peaches in your life and then all of a sudden you get your first taste of a fresh peach. Wow, what a difference! And you are thinking to yourself, where has this freshness been all my life? Why have I settled for canned peaches, when fresh peaches are so great?
So while I was standing there peeling that fresh peach for my daughter and thinking about canned peaches, another thought came to me. How often do we settle for canned peaches in our spiritual lives? I think that happens alot. We are satisfied with our relationship with God being pretty good. We read our Bible, we pray, and we go to church and participate in worship. Everything is pretty good. And we are satisfied with pretty good. But is that all there is?
I want to challenge you today, to take some time and consider if your relationship with God is more like canned peaches or fresh? Does God have more in store for you that you are not enjoying simply because you are satisfied with your spiritual life being just pretty good? Consider David, who in Psalm 42 says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.” Does that sound like a man who is looking forward to some canned peaches?
This Sunday, I will be talking about a new way of looking at prayer. It fits in well with this idea of canned peaches compared to fresh. I don’t want to ever be satisfied with canned peaches, when there is freshness available to me.