One of my favorite snacks of all time is popcorn. Some people become coffee snobs, not me. I can enjoy a cup of coffee many different ways in many different forms. Popcorn is maybe a bit different. Truth be told, I’ve become a bit of a popcorn snob. I have a few ways of popping my popcorn that produce a desired flavor. I figure it’s overall healthy because it is a vegetable, right?
Orville Redenbacher made a good life for himself and his family producing various varieties of popping corn that many still use today. He was an Agronomist, and he had a great understanding of production agriculture as well as plant breeding. He was able to develop a business that still lives on today.
To look at Mr. Redenbacher you might assume him to have been a different person than he actually was. Fitting, his work was popping corn. Much like him, outside appearances don’t tell the whole story. How interesting it is that an unassuming little kernel of goldish-yellow turns into a fluffy whitish lumping ball of goodness. But this only happens when a certain amount of heat exposure occurs.
I guess there were times when the heat of worry, or the heat of the field, made Orville feel like he would pop. But I guess it is fair to say that in that fire, he found his prize. So often this is the way of the sojourner, the Christian, passing through this world enduring the effects of the heat. At times we struggle, and we may well encounter more than we feel we can possibly handle.
That heat changes us, because often we realize we can’t bear it and we call upon the Name of the Lord to help us. And we find help. Too often that is taught with the expectation that our prayers and cries will be answered as we command. That is not so. Our prayers are answered by the will of God, to God’s purpose, and to our necessity. Often this means we are given strength to endure the fire, and sometimes we are transformed by the heat. We should never lose sight of the Truth that our Creator is in charge.
Our verse for today comes from 1 Peter 1:6-7 (ESV):
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Almighty Father, in the heat of the moment we can lose sight of everything else and be bound singularly to our suffering, give us Thy blessed Hand of reassurance and the strength needed to endure, that our faith may be genuine and made steadfast by Thy power working in us, to the glory of Thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with Thee and the Holy Ghost, art One God, who reign supreme now and always. AMEN.