I wrote this article one day when someone that I had been really close to ended up not being the person that I thought that they were. I felt betrayed, fooled, angry, judgmental, and most of all disappointed.

 

I grew up in your typical Southern home and learned how to cook at a very young age.

God spoke to me several months ago while I was getting some dried beans ready to put on for supper.

I was LOOKIN my pinto beans that morning and getting them ready to be washed and put in the pot for cooking. What I mean by LOOKIN the dried beans is that I was going through them and would lay any half beans or dirt clods over to the side and put the good beans in the coriander to be washed and put on to cook.

When I finished LOOKIN my beans I looked at my pile of half beans and tiny little dirt clods that were laying there.

God spoke to me in my spirit and asked me why I put the half beans aside along with the clods because those beans are still good and not spoiled or rotten but just half of what they used to be.

I know about the dirt and God left that part alone but what I got from this was that sin is the dirt in our lives and we all have it. Yes, the sin does need to be purged from our lives but what about all the people that are half the person that they used to be?

Do we at times put these persons in the discard pile of life because we see no hope for them?

What does God see compared to what we see?……are we quick to judge, quick to give up, or quick to throw in the towel on these people?

God says that He is the creator and we are His creation (Genesis 2:7) In Psalm 139:14 it says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (not just a certain few of us but all of us).

I felt pretty ashamed of myself that day and also very judgmental. We are not the judge and also we never really know another person’s heart or their story. But by grace we could be that same person under different circumstances.

To this day every time that I look my beans before putting a pot on,  I think of this lesson that God brought to my attention that day.  I come up with the message that we are just supposed to love and pray for these people that hurt us and let the good Lord be the judge over them.