An Apple Can’t Confess. But You Can.

I love apples. I especially love those that have been bred to be particularly sweet. They look so wonderful and appetizing on the outside. In fact, I eat one every day for lunch. The other day I took a big bite out of one. There was that initial sweet and crisp rush as my teeth broke it’s skin. But then there followed a bitterness, and a terrible aftertaste that lingered far longer than I liked. When I looked at my apple, I noticed that its meat was brown and mushy in spots instead of it’s normal white firmness. Although it looked perfectly fine on the outside, it was rotting on the inside. At some point in it’s development a fungus had gotten into the apple, and as the apple grew, so did the fungus in it’s core. It wasn’t detectable from the outside at all.

So much of your life can be just like that apple. Sin, shortcomings, and hurt invade your life, and if you don’t deal with them, then you begin to rot from the inside out. You may have a smile and a shiny glow, but your heart is slowly suffering, and dying — your spirit failing into mushy brown spots. And when it is time for you to serve God and your fellow man, you risk leaving everyone with a bad aftertaste. You may be reading this right now, knowing full well the danger that your heart and spirit are in.

This rot in the human heart affects the most those who never confess their sins or their problems. Consider the wisdom of the Psalmist who cried out that when he kept silent, his bones wasted away inside of him (Psalm 32:1-3). He realized that he, too, was just like that apple. But there’s good news. He also recognized that God can and does take care of the rot whenever we confess it (Psalm 32:5). Even more interesting is that when we confess our sins and problems to trusted fellow Christians there is healing power (James 5:16a)! James argues that we should confess our problems so that we can be healed. Healed from what? The rot that our hurts, sins, and earthly problems cause us. The truth is that you can’t fix a problem until you acknowledge it. And one way that you can acknowledge it is to share it with God, and with one of his children with whom you’ve built trust.

An apple doesn’t have the ability to ask someone to remove it’s rot. But you do! So take the opportunity to get it out of you before it hurts your heart any further.