The cheese was supposed to be cheddar, not bleu. But I opened the bag and saw—and smelled—that the mould had started lunch before me. It used to be good cheese. Not anymore. I threw it in the bin, on top of the cut flowers that used to be stunning before they wilted and fell to pieces. The green leaves outside are beginning to change colours. Soon I’ll be crunching my way through their fallen glory, and they’ll fade away and feed the soil for next year’s growth. Someday I’ll fade away, too. Everything good comes to an end on this planet. Every blessing, every joy, every life. Refreshing milk sours. Even water stagnates.
It’s a good reminder. When the world was fresh and budding at the dawn of history, when the blessings were untainted with decay and the sweet enjoyment of our first parents was unmarred by any dark expectation of disease and death, when everything was good and right and lovely—that’s when Adam and Eve were tempted. That’s when they chose to accept God’s beautiful gifts, but reject the God who gave them. They forgot that the gifts could never last without him.
The milk that sours and the bread that goes mouldy give us a taste—literally—of the deep, fundamental reality that no matter how sweet and precious and wonderful our blessings are, they do not have the power to sustain us indefinitely. They can never satisfy us fully. They were never meant to. They were meant to point beyond themselves, to the sustaining, satisfying God who gave them. Decay and death teach us, powerfully, to stop putting our hope in finite things. The goodness of the gifts is always limited, while the goodness of the Giver is inexhaustible and eternal, forever fresh, forever full. He is the fountain from which every blessing comes. Every love, every joy, “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). He is the one—the only—reality that does not change, that does not perish or fade or spoil or stagnate. And he loves to give. As Jesus said, “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). An eternal spring! A never-ending river of blessing and life that never stagnates or spoils. That’s what God’s children find in him.
You’ll taste blessings today, I’m sure. And I’m sure you’ll experience some kind of decay, as well. That’s how it is, down here. Enjoy the blessings for what they are, and let their spoiling, souring, rusting limitations remind you that all the blessings in the world can never compare with the never-ending hope that can only be found in Jesus.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” — 1 Peter 1:3-5
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