Bittersweet Best

Isn’t it great when you purchase a “best of” album by your favorite singer!   You read the list of songs and immediately wonder WHO decided these were the best? Apparently, “best” is relative to the one doing the picking.

In your mind, go back to a bitter time.  Yeah, I know we try to not remember those painful times but I’ve found them to be magnificently historical to my faith.  The past pain reminds me how Christ seemed a tad closer, His Presence slightly more evident, and His Hand tighter around me.  The bitterness of the past has the capacity to become sweetness when given to God.  Remember when Jesus’ closest friends took a nap in the Garden while Jesus wrestled with the cross.  How easy it would have been for them to have sunk into despair but Christ didn’t allow it: He said, “Rise, let us be going … “ (Matthew 26:46)  Oh, how they surely remembered that in years to come when discouragement threatened to slow them down.  Matthew Henry wrote, “let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ.”   It’s amazing how God uses the bitterest of times to create lives that are to Him a sweet smelling savor  (Ephesians 5:2).  It really is the best of bittersweet!