Inside

 

I am not a red neck; I am a hillbilly.  And growing up, we didn’t collect southern pecans, we collected West Virginia black walnuts.  Walnuts have a hard shell and are difficult to process, but they are abundant and free.  We collected black walnuts in the fall and stored them in a wooden box in the back yard.  When the husks had shriveled and dried, we rolled them around with our shoes to rub the husks off leaving the rough walnut shell.  Then, when mom wanted some walnuts for baking, she commissioned us boys to smash the walnuts with a heavy hammer and picked the goodness out of the smashed shells.  Not an easy task.  Hit the shell too hard, and the walnut meat was smashed together with bits and pieces of the shell.  Hit the shell too easy, and nothing happened.  The blow had to be just right.  But one year, squirrels got to the walnuts before we could.  And it was uncanny how they knew which shells held good meat inside (which they gnawed open and ate) and which shells were hollow with nothing inside.  And when we got around to cracking open the walnuts that the squirrels had left, each one was empty!  Those clever squirrels had cleaned us out!  Hey, as I look around, I don’t know what is inside of each person that I encounter.  Each person looks good on the outside, but only God knows the heart.  Only God knows who is a Christian and who is only pretending to be a Christian.  The Lord said in I Samuel 16:7, “… for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”  Hey, how is your heart?  Is it right with God?  Or is it rotten on the inside?  Now would be a good time to get your heart right with God.  Yes, it would!