Looking for Bad Peas

It is Independence Day and we are waiting for our daughter and her family to drive down from north Alabama. I have a Boston butt on the grill and am cooking fresh purple hull peas, creamed corn, and okra, and will make peach ice cream later. As I was washing the peas in preparation to cook, I was flooded by memories of the years when my mother taught me how to cook fresh vegetables.

Much of my younger growing up years was spent in Birmingham and New Orleans but after my daddy graduated from seminary, we moved to Baldwin County. There we began having a garden and I learned to can, freeze, preserve, and pickle all kinds of vegetables. I can remember my mother's instructions so clearly about preparing the peas after we had shelled them. We washed them carefully, and I was cautioned to "look" them carefully to be able to find the bad ones and throw them away. We threw out the ones that were badly discolored or shriveled up or that had a worm hole on it. These would spoil the good peas.

As I was "looking" my peas today, I thought of spiritual applications for this memory. David told his son, Solomon, in 1 Chronicles 28:9 to "...know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts." In Psalm 26, David entreated God to examine him and try him. In Psalm 139:23-24, he said, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way." David was asking God to "look" his heart and root out the unrighteousness there. Paul tells the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 11:28 that before coming to the communion table, a man is to examine himself. He says in verse 27 that "...whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord." Unconfessed sin in our lives is a serious matter, according to scripture.

My challenge today is that we all search, examine, "look" our hearts and ask God to do so to convict us of sin and bring us to confession and cleansing.