The conversation went like this:
Customer: ‘Can you help me; do you have any cantaloupe melons?’
Assistant: ‘I’ll just check our stock to see if we have any.’ The assistant checked their electronic handset. ‘I’m sorry but we won’t have any until tomorrow morning.’
The reaction from the customer was not what the assistant expected. In fact the reaction was on a par with receiving news that a loved one had died. It wasn’t as though there weren’t any other varieties of melon available (there were several to say the least). No, it had to be cantaloupe and it had to be available now!
Yes, I was that assistant and other than the usual customer service bit; there was little else I could do. This left my mind to wander (not a good thing at the best of times). Were their family being held at gunpoint with the kidnappers demanding provision of a myriad of exotic fruit of which this melon was just one, in exchange for their liberty? Were they going to suffer unspeakable consequences from their family on arriving home ‘sans cantaloupe?’ Or is the social stigma in Salisbury of not having a cantaloupe too much for them to bear? The answers to all of these are, I would hope, no!
The thing is that we are all guilty of thinking and behaving like this, whether it is because our team lost, the train was cancelled or the shop had just sold the last one. By comparison to whether we spend eternity in heaven or hell this sort of thing does not even amount to a minor irritation. Even if we compare these sort of things with what is going on in our world I would imagine that a cantaloupe melon would be the last thing on the mind of a covid patient who was fighting for breath.
I admit every day I it seems that I lose the perspective that the biggest problem in my life is sin and separation from God, and that was dealt with at the cross by Jesus. Jesus spoke so often of this sort of thing and how we will have trouble in this world and that above all else we should rest in what He did. This world is like some beaten up old banger of a car – it will let us down from time to time. That isn’t to say that we become fatalistic and expect everything to go wrong, no our hope should be in Jesus because as He said in John 16v33: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
I recall on a few occasions telling friends who had gone through the last war that I had had a deprived childhood. They looked at me in disbelief, but before they could put me right I pointed out that having gone through the various experiences that the war brought, it allowed them to put the things that the following generations struggle with into perspective. A perspective shaped by the comparative ease that peace had brought with it. I would however not wish such a cataclysm on any generation. The past two years have been hard for both my wife and I (and this was without a pandemic) and we have struggled in so many ways. We are not out of the woods yet; God is moving us on, one step at a time. Where to exactly we have no idea and trying to trust every day can be really difficult when you lose your job and have to sell your home.
Recently I was reminded that Jesus took the blind man in Mark 8 by the hand and led him to a place where he got his sight restored. The restoration was not instantaneous, it was in two stages. The thing was that the man had to trust Jesus implicitly; when Jesus took his hand he didn’t know where he was being led to. Jesus was not going to take the man to a place of danger, hurt or humiliation. He went to a place of restoration and final clarity of sight. I try to do that each and every day with varying degrees of success, but I have to keep trusting, clarity and perspective will come.
In God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?
Psalm 56v4
Image Credit: Mathilde Langevin
