Bananas & figs

There they were sitting on the counter of our kitchen. A few bananas...3 I think. I had gone shopping earlier in the week with one of my kids. I asked if there was a particular type of fruit they'd like us to pick up. "Bananas, Dad. We don't have any bananas!"

I suggested they grab a few. They cam back to the cart with twice as many as I had intended!

Not wanting to dampen their enthusiasm, we put the bunches into the cart and I encouraged this child, "I hope you're ready to eat a bunch...literally!"

Now as I was sitting in the kitchen, a number of days had passed. Most of the bananas had been consumed. But these 3 remained. And as I looked at them, I wondered seriously if they would ever be eaten.

We like bananas yellow and still relatively firm. These bananas were mostly brown, a little bit of black, and a few hints of their former yellow days. They were beyond turning soft. They were starting to turn mushy. (We like to call these "banana muffin" bananas because in our house, they have a better chance of being eaten that way.)

Unattractive. Unlikely to be eaten. More of a bait for fruit flies than people.

On a counter in the other side of the kitchen was 1, single, nice, ripe, yellow, ready-to-eat banana. It had been brought for lunch by 1 of the little girls Tammi baby-sits. Her parents probably had just purchased it yesterday. They may have only purchased 1 or 2 bananas. They certainly didn't have a mountain of bananas in their kitchen due to an overzealous teenager.

I thought of my near-worthless bunch of bananas and her 1 good banana as I read Jeremiah 24 today.

The prophet is having a conversation in God's kitchen, so to speak. And God points out figs , not bananas,to Jeremiah.

The good figs are people God was sending into captivity, away from the Promised Land. The nation had become so rebellious, careless, and forgetful toward God that the best thing God could do for those good figs was protect them in a foreign place. "I will give them a heart to know me" and they will "return to me with all of their heart" God says (24:7 NIV).

Ah, but the rotten, no good, worthless figs...they will become a stench in the nose and disgusting in the eyes of all who see them. Like food that molds and draws maggots and flies. Yuck.

I wonder...

If God were to talk to you about your life today, to which figs would you be compared? Would you be suitable for consumption, able to help feed someone who is hungry and in need?

Or would people turn their nose up at you and run away from you as fast as they could?

I just heard Tammi ask if the little girl would like a banana. No kidding.

Grace & peace