I'm in a pickle...or I am a pickle...or I am a cucumber, but I want to be a pickle...

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, God uses Paul to say this: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (NIV) My favorite way of understanding that is by looking at the pickle. If you cut one open, it is as green and picklish on the inside as it is on the outside. Why? Because it has been cooked in the brine. It isn't just dipped in there for a while, but it is salty through and through.

So I am the cucumber. But oh, how I long to be the pickle. I want to be so "in Jesus" that I look like Him on the outside as well as on the inside. I want to be salted with His presence, His love, His grace so much that my whole being is consumed by Him. I am struggling with only dipping myself in His brine, instead of being cooked in His glory.

Lord, pickle me today. Set me apart...from this world and into you...