Sometimes God speaks to me in the most unexpected ways and says some of the most unexpected things. This is especially true in moments when I feel emptied and have nothing left to give. Much like days like today, where I am operating on very little sleep after a beyond blessed weekend that was Fall Fest.
With tired arms (I slinged so many pumpkins) and a full heart, I asked God what He would have me share in this week’s devo. The one image/word that populated my mind again and again was that of a pomegranate. Take what you will from that; either I am humbly attuned to the Spirit of the Lord, or I am beyond delusionally tired and slowly losing my mind.
For me, pomegranates elicit a lot of differing emotions and thoughts. Being a millennial, I immediately think of Pom™ juice, which, for me, was a bougie drink reserved for rich kids and their egotistical parents. I also distinctly remember stealing pomegranates from my neighbor’s tree while on a ding-dong-ditching rampage with my neighborhood kid friends. I also have a unique association with pomegranates because of my beautiful daughter Ella, who had to be brought into the doctor’s office after she stuck not one, not two, but MULTIPLE pomegranate seeds (botanical term “arils”) into her left nostril while attempting to eat them for one of the first times.
Wealth, juvenile crime, and doctors’ offices. What else does a pomegranate remind me of? Well, when I look at the Bible (stay focused, Bryce), I think about the depictions of Solomon’s Temple and priestly garments in the Old Testament, both of which contained design elements that were modeled after the humble pomegranate (Exodus 28:33–35 and 1 Kings 7:20). But WHY pomegranates? Well, I’m not so certain, but some Jewish traditions hold that the pomegranate’s 613 seeds correspond to the 613 laws in the Torah. Others assert that the pomegranate fruit itself represents the people and land of Israel. They were battered on the outside like the pomegranate’s peel, but have been able to bless others from the richness and beauty contained within.
I can’t help but think about Jesus and contemplate His sacrifice when thinking about this metaphor. A man betrayed, brutalized, and broken by those closest to Him the night before His crucifixion and by the angry crowds that surrounded Him that horrid day was yet able to perform an unfathomable miracle, whose beauty still stands today: eternal salvation:
But it was because of our rebellious deeds that he was pierced
and because of our sins that he was crushed.
He endured the punishment that made us completely whole,
and in his wounding we found our healing.
Isaiah 53:5 (TPT)
When I think of a pomegranate today, I now think of Christ. Though blistered, battered, and bruised on the outside, He still produced and offered a richness that satisfies even the deepest desires of the human heart. Though you may feel broken and bruised today, your external appearance (or what you may think about it) is not an indictment of your worth and potential. Maybe you struggle with feelings of inadequacy or not being “pretty,” “smart,” or “wealthy” enough. Perhaps the trap of comparison robs your contentment more often than not. If that is the case, then I have some pretty good news for you. God is quite famous for using nobodies and turning them into somebodies. He’s well-renowned for using the rejected and despised to do the most incredible and impossible things.
When you feel not enough or too battered and broken to be used by God, picture the pomegranate and remember these words from Romans 9:
I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”
they’re calling you “God’s living children.”
Romans 9:25 (MSG)