The Kiwi Story

This story was written by me about 10 years ago!  Wow, time flies!  I was attending Bible College at the time in Austria.  God was doing a lot of work on my heart that year and building up my faith foundation that has kept me solid ever since.  I am copying this straight from my then-journal.  It is something that has stuck with me all these years and I still have friends that bring it up from when I shared it with them back then.  I hope it encourages you!


10/26/00
Today I was feeling really unattractive because I got a bunch of new zits, my hair is super flat, and I've gained weight and so on .... so I came down to the dock to pray and just eat this apple I'd saved from breakfast.  So, I was sitting here eating it and came to the middle and found a live worm in it!!!  I immediately threw it into the lake and started spitting.  Then I just went on and prayed more.  Well I asked God to speak to me and He started showing me an analogy.  That apple was beautiful to look at and from the outside appeared flawless...but inside it was rotten.  A kiwi, on the other hand, is on the outside not ver pleasant to look at yet amazing sweetness is inside.  I picked the apple over the kiwi this morning based on how it looked.  Yet if I had to choose between a beautiful yet rotten apple and a less attractive yet yummy kiwi, I'd choose the kiwi!  I feel like I am a kiwi today.  I'm not very attractive on the outside  yet there is sweetness within because of Jesus living in my heart.  Why does anyone choose the kiwi in the morning?  Not because of the way it looks on the outside but because when they see it, ALL they see is the beauty and pleasure within.  I want to look at people that way- not judge at all the physical appearance but just see them for all that Jesus has created them to be.  I want to see myself this way as well.  Whether I feel like a kiwi or apple in a given day, I want to feel lovely because my Lord is "enthralled with my beauty" (Psalm 45).  If He considers me suitable enough for His own Spirit to live in me than who I am to judge or criticize myself (or others)?  Do I know better than God?  Absolutely not!  God has blessed me so much, what in the world am I complaining about zits for?  I am a kiwi today and Jesus loves me...that is all that really matters.

                                                                                                                                                                   


Each time I read this entry it speaks to me again and again.  Whether I feel like a kiwi or an apple or a mixture of the two, all that truly matters is that Jesus lives within me.  My outer appearance is not going with me to heaven.  Only my spirit.  Which one do I care more about?  And which one do I notice more in others?