Collard greens

Oct

15

2024

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Oct

15

2024

One time a neighbor brought some collard greens over and told me to try them out and see if I liked them. He told me that they were different than most collard greens. I asked, “How so?” And his reply was that he didn’t know, but they were different and that I should try some.

Hmmm . . . I looked at them and they were green and leafy and looked like . . . well . . . collard greens to me, but I gave them to my wife and told her to cook some up, that they were different. She looked at me and said, “How so?” I replied, “I don’t know, they’re just different. Try them”.

I don’t like collard greens and these were no exception. It is my understanding that in addition to collards, there are some 80 different species of green leafy plants and they are all good for us due to their low caloric count, low fat, and high vitamin content nevertheless I don’t like them.

Hmmm . . . No wonder I don’t like them; they’re good for me. When they’re cooked they are a nasty green color and I speculate as to whether or not that has something to do with it. I wonder why God made them green instead of a rich golden chocolate color like Snickers candy bars which I love.

Many years ago I saw our twin granddaughters coloring and they were selecting colors in their renderings that seemed a little odd to me, like painting a dog a bright violet color. I’ve never seen a violet dog created by God, but at least one of my twins likes them violet.

I often envision God creating things and I think it must have been great fun for Him. He created colorful birds like macaws, furry rabbits topped off with a little cotton tail, chattering monkeys, big fat walruses, long nosed elephants, raccoons with their bandit faces, owls with their haunting-hooting, turkeys and their ugly red, white, and blue heads, whistling Bobwhite quail, graceful whitetail deer and, eagles with their fierce countenance, and all sorts of colorful flowers and plants.

I suppose as He sat at His easel and came to collards, He decided that they needed to be green. Now they are called collard greens and not collard blues.

I was telling some guests that Words for the Day now reaches people around the world, and I occasionally receive e-mails from faraway places like Algeria, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and so forth. One time a full page article about me appeared on the front page of the Athens Greece newspaper. I have a copy of it, but it’s all Greek to me, and I cannot read a word of it.

I’m often told by these folks in faraway lands that my personal testimony is inspiring to them, and I find it interesting that someone located on the other side of the world relates to my life here in the good old USA; (collard greens notwithstanding).

I suppose people everywhere try to understand our Creator and have an innate desire to learn more about Him. Not that I’m an expert on Him mind you, I just like to read about Him in His Holy Word the Bible and think about Him most of the time. I suppose that some folks find my view of God interesting at times, (maybe not today, but perhaps tomorrow will be better).

I was told the other day that my testimony offers hope. Hmmm . . . I suppose there might be some truth to that. God saw something in me that others did not see; because everyone including me predicted that I’d never amount to anything and would crash and burn and would never reach the ripe old age of 25 years old.

Fortunately, God sees us for what we CAN BE and not what we ARE. He looks past our sins via compassion and not condemnation. Did you ever think about that?

When I questioned ever being able to change my wicked – wicked ways and told my nurse that it couldn’t be done, she told me that God can do anything including changing my “sorry butt”. She told me that God created everything in the world including me and if He wanted to change me He could.

God is the almighty Creator, the great I AM, and as you might recall from reading my book, my nurse Lydia stated, “He can do anything He want”. That made a lot of sense to me. God can change anything, because He created everything.

I couldn’t figure out why He would want to though, because I was the lowest of the low; I wasn’t at the bottom of the barrel, I was buried several feet below the bottom of the barrel. I was a scumbag. Turns out that was my opinion of myself, God saw it differently. He loved me in spite of my shortcomings. Plus He knew that fifty years later I would still be writing this devotional.

The most vivid example of this phenomenon called grace was when He was on the cross. He’d been beaten beyond recognition and was soaked in His own blood; His nose was broken; He was struggling to breathe; His joints were being pulled apart by His own weight; nails had been driven through His hands and feet; sharp thorns pierced His head; He was being humiliated in front of His mother, and a jeering, cursing, crowd was spitting on Him and taunting Him. He looked down on them with incomprehensible love and asked His Father to forgive them.

Yikes, when I envision that taunting, jeering, vicious, blood-thirsty crowd, I see my face among them. My dark sins helped put Him there!

He spoke to me and changed my hardened bitter heart. I know that my black sins helped put him on that cross and He willingly took my punishment for them, and I’ll be eternally grateful for it. That’s why I hate it even today when I let Him down through my stupidity and rebellious nature. When I let Him down it just makes me want to scream. I hate it – I hate it – I hate it!

How about you? Has He spoken to you? Have you allowed Him into your heart? I hope so. Enjoy your day today!

If you have a moment to daydream, think about Adam before the fall today. Will heaven be like that as God creates even more delightful creatures? I think so . . .

Gen. 2:19
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

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