Jeremiah 24:3 “Then the Lord said to me, ‘What do you see, Jeremiah?’ And I said, ‘Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness.’”
GOOD OR BAD FIGS
My mom use to make a cookie called fig chewy. Now, if you don’t like figs, you would not like this cookie. I happen to love figs. I can still see and smell those cookies. Man, give me a napkin because my mouth is drooling right now.
My mom got her figs from my grandmother’s fig tree on her farm. These were those big brown figs. When I was little I couldn’t wait for fig season. Not only did that mean fresh cookie and fried pies, but I could go to that tree and eat them right off the tree. Yum! But my mom (and I) would pick those figs so she could cook them and put up fig preserves (which she used to make those awesome cookies).
TEACHING MOMENT
But wait a moment. What has this got to do with the verse today? Well, the people of Judah were “stored away” until they could be brought back out of exile, just like my grandma’s good figs would be picked, cooked and stored away to be brought out later for a good thing. What the people of Judah thought was bad turned out to be good. Those who were left in Judah represented the bad figs, the spoiled figs, the ones to be thrown out, just like the figs left on the tree or on the ground.
My point is this. Sometimes the Lord works in ways that can confuse us. We don’t see the big picture. We have to trust the Lord to handle things sometimes. I am sure those who were taken into exile thought they were worse off than those who stayed in Judah. But the opposite was true. God preserved the exiled people.
Don’t you want the Lord to “preserve” you? Of course, you do. Who wouldn’t? But in order to be preserved, you need to be cooked a little. That may sound harsh, but it’s not. Trust Him to cook you to perfection. The end result will be much sweeter.
A Moment In Time 