Aged Cheese

A week ago, my dad brought home some sharp cheddar cheese, one of his favorites...this particular cheese though was a bit more special than normal because it was 12 year-old aged cheddar....that's pretty old cheese I thought.  And cool too, just because I think stuff like that is cool, for no reason.

Okay, now I'm 26 years old, and that cheese is 12 years old, that means that when I was 14, someone decided to put this cheese away & wait 12 years to serve it.  For 12 years that cheese sat there, wherever that may be, waiting for just the right moment to come out & be served.  Had it only sat for a few years, it probably still would have been good, but have you ever eaten 12 year-old aged cheddar? It's amazing...it's good, it has a unique taste, etc. etc. Ha. I'm not really THAT crazy about cheese, but you gotta think about this in this other way...think about us as cheese.  Laughing yet? Just hold on....

Psalm 139:13 & 16 says "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb....Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."  This is amazing if you think about it, because God knew us, knew our every step & all about us before we even existed.  Wow. That tells me that over 26 years ago, God knew that I would be typing this blog, where I'd be & that there must be a purpose to my life...to each of our lives!

Like a fine wine or a fine cheese, as we enter into the family of God, even before we entered the family of God, we were set aside for a purpose, we have been given a story, we have reason to live.  Isn't that interesting though? To think of ourselves as in this waiting position, waiting to be taken off the shelf for God to use us?  I don't think He is completely passive though, at some point this analogy breaks down because I think we're used here & there throughout our lives, but as it says in Ecclesiastes 3:1, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."  I wonder if that means that we won't die until God has fulfilled in us the purpose He has created us for.  It is not until that point that we will finally see the Glory of God fulfilled & complete.

Just thoughts.  It makes me appreciate the cheese a lot more though...:) Hope you can see it differently too.  You are special, you're made with a purpose, you are loved, you are meant for something and no one can take away that meaning from you. You are God's child, designed intentionally to be who God purposed, to bring Glory to Him & reconcile you to Him in due time. Amen!!