Allergies and trust

If you or someone you love lives with a food allergy, you know which brands and bakeries to trust: the nut-free facility, the bakery that keeps gluten away from everything else. The reaction might hurt or might threaten a life, so you hold the people who make your food to a high standard, and you’re right to. 

You didn’t choose an allergy, but it redefines daily life anyway. Learning to live this way takes time. It’s tricky and messy, with each label another decision. An allergy shows how fragile a body and a life can be, and the care makes sense because life is worth protecting.

Jesus takes our lives seriously too. He redefines life, but he does it for our good, and he asks first. 

An allergy requires that you stay watchful every day, because your safety depends on your own checking. Jesus offers a safety that rests on him alone: our wellbeing is secure in him once and for all.

He promises to hold our life and be with us in today’s struggles. That promise reaches our bodies too. The allergy may stay for now. Whatever happens to our bodies along the way, he says he will make them new in the life to come with him. 

Jesus invites us to trust him the way we trust the bakery we’ve come to rely on, one visit at a time. An ancient song in the Bible (Psalm 34:8) says to taste and see that God is good. 

If we choose, we get to find out what it’s like to be held by the one who made us and cares about what happens to us and the people we love.