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The old man stood, considering the congregation before him for a moment, and then he began to speak. “God gave me a dream,” he said. “Many years ago in my Christian walk, there was a peculiar temptation that I was facing. I was growing concerned that my walk of sanctification was becoming stagnant. I was not growing as fast as I thought I should be and, knowing that these are the last days, and that the close of probation is growing closer, I was starting to feel a sense of urgency. Was I missing something? Was I doing something wrong? Was there some critical truth that I had overlooked?
“As I slept one night after consdering these things, my Father showed me a banana. On the outside, it looked good, healthy, sound. However, as I looked on He began to peel the banana, to pull away that outer covering, and I could see that the banana itself had some bruises, some spots, some over-ripe areas. It was not anything that someone would want to eat.
“I then saw a sharp knife held in a steady hand. Carefully, with great precision and skill, I saw that the knife was cutting away those plague spots. Nothing that was good was removed, but the dark, ugly areas were being carved out and discarded.
“When the knife was finished its work, there before me was the banana. It had cuts in it, some of them deep. However, not one bad spot was left. It was a perfectly mature fruit, at the peak of its ripeness.
“I considered what this meant, and my Father said to me, ‘You are the banana. I will carve away from you all that is offensive, and to do this I will need to use a sharp knife… but I will never throw away the banana.’
“When I woke up, I knew that God had spoken to me. He had revealed His love to me, and from that moment forward, I never doubted my walk with Him. Sanctification is resting in the hand of the Creator, and letting Him perform His good and perfect work on us, in us, and through us. I was healed of my feelings of anxiety, and I moved forward in continuous victory.”
This parable, a true account, may be of great comfort to those who are feeling uncertain about their relationship with the Father and Son. Feelings are not necessarily indicative of reality; in fact, they are often misleading since they are subject to so many biological, emotional, and spiritual factors. What is important is that in the surgery of our sanctification, it is Yahweh’s perfect hand that holds the knife, and we are given grace, the power to choose, to believe that His work in us will be accomplished to the fullest. This is the faith to which all are invited, “being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Yahshua the Messiah.” (Phil 1:6)
David.