And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. Genesis 1:11-13

I like grapes especially purple ones. The most fascinating grape tasting experience that I have had was on a church trip from Germany. We stopped off on the Auto Baum at a petro station near one of the vineyards and one of our party purchased a bunch of grapes. Only knowing the British grape experience we all thought that grapes tasted sort of the same.

“Wow!” Came a startled voice from the rear seats of the coach. “You have to taste this!” And one by one a grape was passed to each person as there wasn’t the forethought to purchase more.  Well, I have never had a taste bud popping experience like it, it was if I was drinking a rich, heavy grape juice that filled my mouth with flavour up to the point of my ears on the inside. It is difficult to put into words, but I am sure you can resonate if you have had a similar experience.

I got so carried away moving the juices around my mouth, I almost forgot to spit out the seed into a tissue.

I was reminded of this today, because as I reached into the fridge a sign on the carton of grapes caught my attention, and not for the first time. SEEDLESS. My dad never liked eating grapes, or any fruit for that matter which did not have seeds. Nowadays I do not think it even possible to purchase seeded grapes such is the state of the market. I researched it at the time and found out that fruit without seeds are actually a result of cloning fruit grown from cuttings rather than a seed. Whilst this may be better from the point of the consumer, have you ever considered whether this was God’s plan? I don’t need to answer that question for you, but here is another one; are we like seedless grapes? Do those who we come into contact with leave us without being pollinated with Christianity?

Food, or I should say, fruit for thought.

Chris Tomlin sings ‘Lord I need you’. Click on the picture to listen.