God, eat me like a fig!

The deacon at our church grew up in Cyprus. He is constantly telling me stories about life there. I love them because they are about village life: honest, open, raw.

We were talking about figs one day
"You know Father Bryan the figs in Cyprus are just the best! But you have to check them before you eat them, not so for the ones that come to America, they spray them. You need to cut them open closely and look at the little white dots. My mother's eyes were no good for this so it was my job to do it. If you see the little white dot move, it was a worm and you threw it away. It could not be eaten."

This is how God examines us too. He looks at the inside, not the pretty outside

“The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
    a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
    and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
    I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
    not as they pretend to be.”

                                                         Jeremiah 17:9-10     

                      

God uses the Holy Spirit to examine our hearts. He looks for worms and of course they are full of them deep-down in side. That's because we are human...and even if we are truly abandoned to God, our heart's will never be worm-free until Christ comes and claims us, or he returns.

God does not simply rid us of all our worms and eat our hearts in one big bite. Oh how I wish he would.
We need to offer it to him for checking, and the only way we will ever do that is to look into ourselves and compare our hearts to His.

When we do this two things become apparent:
His heart is lovely.
Ours is not.

God knows are hearts are like this but he does not see them as they are, but as they will be!
Clean, whole, restored, perfect...

 And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. 

I will take out your stony, stubborn heart 

and give you a tender, responsive heart.

  

Then we can love and praise him as we should...

But we need to ask him to do this from the inside out, not the outside in. 

We need new hearts first, not just stop bad actions...