God's Real-live Coconut

“Amy, stop. God told me to prophesy over you.” A rather bold statement, I know. Amy was in a very conservative bubble considering her Christianity, but was not opposed to things like prophecy and praying in tongues that man doesn’t understand. I was afraid that she wouldn’t have anything to do with hearing what I had to say, but I couldn’t help it. The Spirit was stirring inside of me and I had something to tell her.
I was walking her home from my house which was only about six houses away from hers. It was nighttime, and it was kind of awkward to just stop in the gutter on the side of the street and tell her that God spoke to me. I know I sounded eccentric.
“Okay,” was all she replied. Her tone was questioning, but not judgmental.
I took a deep breath and began to pray. I always get nervous when things like that happen, but every time I just step out and let it happen, no one involved is disappointed. The Spirit began to show me pictures, as is usually the case when He decides to speak through me. I stood with my eyes closed watching the images flash in my mind and praying that He would tell me what they meant. Sometimes they are not literal.
“God has already delivered you from something in your past and you have returned to it for comfort. He wants you to turn to Him and not to the same struggles that He has pulled you out of,” I said with a slight amount of confidence. I’m always afraid that I just make things up and God will smite me for pretending that it’s from Him.
Amy stared with a blank expression in her eyes and her mouth slightly open. “Do you know what it is?”
“Yes, but I don’t want you to be upset with me for knowing. You haven’t told me, so maybe you didn’t want me to know and I didn’t try to know, so if you don’t want me to acknowledge that I know, then I won’t.”
“Tell me.”
“God showed me an image of you in your closet cutting yourself. I didn’t actually see blood or a knife, but I knew that’s what was happening. My view was from behind you. You were on your knees but bent over close to the floor. I felt like your wrists were bleeding, but your stomach was actually what was being cut at the time. God wants you to know that you don’t have to hurt yourself just to feel something. You have known Him and you know that He can protect you from that. You know that He can fix whatever it is that’s driving you to cut yourself.”
“Eric, there is no way that you could have known that.”


This time I was attending a “house church” in Birmingham. The church that I attended while in school at UAB did not hold a conventional service on Sunday nights. Instead they had house churches where people who lived in a certain area went and brought food. The responsibility of feeding everyone was shifted every week, and the purpose was to discuss the previous morning’s sermon. I liked this concept because it wasn’t like most churches where you hear something once and you’re not really ever given a chance to ask questions.
The discussion was done. The leader took prayer requests as usual. He prayed the prayer that I had expected, but my body felt as did every time I knew God wanted something more to happen. I felt heavy and expectant and my heart rate sped up only slightly, but I didn’t say anything to the leader. When he was done praying, not one of the 15 people in the small apartment living room moved. No one even went for the food.
“I feel like we’re not done yet,” the leader announced non-chalantly.
“I feel the same way,” I shouted with conviction.
The leader continued, “Let’s pray a little more and see what happens.”
There were a few words given that I don’t recall. I know that a few people were ministered to. I only remember that God gave me something to say, and before I knew it, my mouth was moving.
“Someone in this room is holding back. You have something that you need to share, but you’re afraid to.”
Silence. Stillness.
Emerging timidly from the background one of the girls who had not been so shy during the night’s discussion spoke up. She explained that she had been experiencing some personal medical problems that could turn into more serious conditions. She did not explain the nature of the problems, just that she was having some tests done would like prayer for her health and for the doctors to know how to treat her.
Like any other Pentecostal church group, everyone immediately gathered around her to lay hands on her and pray. Those who couldn’t reach extended a hand in her direction. She was comforted by holding tightly the hand of a friend she had brought with her to visit our house church and they sat side-by-side on the coffee table because that was the closest to the center of the group that they could get.
I never closed my eyes during our prayer for her. I don’t remember ever touching her during the prayer. I remember praying for all the things that anyone would expect. I remember when everyone was done praying, they relaxed their arms and she lifted her head which had been bowed and opened her eyes only to look directly into mine.
I had to say it before I thought about it too much, “I believe God would have you to know that whatever this condition is, it is not a punishment for your past. Your sins have been forgiven and this is in no way indicates God’s love for you or the amount of forgiveness you have received.”
Before I really knew what happened she began wailing. She melted into the friend who had come as a visitor and sobbed uncontrollably, snot and tears everywhere. The friend wrapped her arms around her and told her it would be okay as apologies and comforting words were racing through my head but not coming out because I had not expected that reaction at all. I thought I had just emotionally devastated her.
“We were praying for confirmation about that,” the friend explained. “These are tears of joy.”
“Oh, good.” I felt my face relax and the panicked expression fade. My heart began to slow, and breath returned to my lungs.


The members of the church that I visited in Bahia Solano, Columbia, live very primitively when compared to my luxurious American life. They raise chickens, fish, and knock coconuts from trees for food. I believe the way they utilize the coconut is very creative. They chop it up, grind it into a fine powder, and mix it with rice. It’s served in a small pile or mixed in with soup which is flavored with some sort of leaf and has a whole fish in the bowl.
This might sound appetizing to some. I, on the other hand, loathe the thought of coconut flavor. It makes me cringe on the inside to think about it, and the only food I hate worse than coconut would be the onion because it taste the same way that body odor smells. Coconut flavored anything leaves my mouth feeling dry and the bitter taste lingers on much longer than any taste is welcome to. I find nothing enjoyable about coconut.
When we approached the front of the church, there was an elderly woman outside working on a fresh coconut. I thought about how glad I was that didn’t have to endure that taste on a regular basis. Immediately after that thought, she offered a small piece of the coconut to me to eat as a welcoming gesture. She tried to communicate with me in Spanish, but I quickly explained, “No habla espanol.” (being the ignorant American that I was, I didn’t know that it was supposed to be hablo.)
I accepted the piece of coconut because I had been taught that when on a mission trip, you do not refuse the food of a native. If you are not hungry, if it looks gross, if you know it’s something you won’t like, you take it anyway and deal with it. I smiled and secretly thought, “I’m doing this for Jesus, I’m doing this for Jesus.” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and popped it in my mouth before I could think about it.
The ugly, brown outside part was kind of grainy, but not bad. The white part was AMAZING! I had braced myself for a terrible flavor, but it was not only one I had not expected, but the exact opposite. It tasted crisp and crunchy. It made my mouth feel clean. Oddly, it was similar to the feeling I have after brushing my teeth.
So what was the difference? God’s real-live coconut was actually pretty good. All I had to do was try the real thing. It made me think about God Himself. About how many times I had been hurt by the church or by leadership of a particular church. About all the evangelists on television that offer a vile of healing water and manipulate every last penny out of little old ladies who send in their last cent. I remembered all the stories about hidden sexual sins within the clergy and even the protestant pastors.
The God that I had gotten through these people was just like the coconut I had always gotten in America. He left a bitter taste in my mouth at times and I used to loathe the thought of what the He stood for and the flavor of affliction that He brought to the world before I actually took time to get to know Him. I would say that a large portion of the world looks upon the Christian God with such disdain as a result of corrupt pastors and people who are only trying to earn the prestige and the money with His name. He is often looked at as wrathful, vengeful, and even hateful at times. Why does a good person suffer from starvation and sickness while the corrupt pastor is living it up in one of his houses in Beverly Hills?
I don’t have the answer to that. I do know that God is actually more like Columbian coconut. The real-live, unhindered, non-processed God is so much more than power in Pat Robertson’s prayer cloth, or the anointing in a bottle of oil purchased from TBN. The sad truth is that a lot of people will never know, or care to know, the real-live coconut version of God.
I also know that if God didn’t love the people he created, he never would have spoken to me to speak to those girls. He would have let Amy go on cutting herself, never hearing from Him, and suffering in her confusion. The girl in Birmingham would have gone on with feelings of condemnation and self-pity and guilt because she would have blamed herself. He spoke to them out of love and concern for them, not wrath or judgment.
I’ve recently heard a song by John Mark McMillan that speaks of God’s love for us. He says, “Heaven meets Earth with a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest and I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us.” I know God. At least I think I do. And I know that I would never eat American coconut ever again, even if I had liked it before.