“What is happening to me happens to all fruits that grow ripe.
It is the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker, and my soul quieter.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
(ripening persimons on the tree / Julie Cook / 2017)
Ripe: fully grown and developed: mature ripe fruit
:having mature knowledge, understanding, or judgment
Unripe: not fully matured
2. not fully prepared or developed; not ready
How do we know when something is ripe?
Color?
Touch?
Taste?
All of the above?
Ripe equates with that which is good.
That which is pleasing.
That which is inviting.
Ripe is as good as it gets….
Unripe is bitter, hard, immature, not ready…
unripe is unproductive.
If you profess to being a Christian,
how does the anyone know whether or not you are ripe and ready?
One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very bad figs, so bad they could not be eaten.
Then the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”
“Figs,” I answered.
“The good ones are very good, but the bad ones are so bad they cannot be eaten.”
Then the word of the Lord came to me:
“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:
‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah,
whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians.
My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land.
I will build them up and not tear them down;
I will plant them and not uproot them.
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people,
and I will be their God,
for they will return to me with all their heart.
Jeremiah 24:2-7
cookiecrumbstoliveby 
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
Reblogged this on Truth in Palmyra and commented:
This is a good question, Julie. Are we a ripe fruit, grown and mature, and sweet to the taste, or do we make people pucker up because we are immature and sour? Comments closed here, blessings and enjoy!
thank you Wally—to answer your question on your previous post, the one asking about being blessed today…this was my blessing, thank you.
Well…That was very sweet and I just got my own blessing
thank you–didn’t know if you’d get my response since the comments were closed so I just commented on your previous post–so now your’e seeing double
Lol I have to see double to make up for the things I don’t seem to be able to hear anymore lol.
ask me about a spouse who can’t hear—not only is it selective but he actually has hearing aids…very expensive hearing aids that he hates and laments that they really don’t help—but…when he inadvertently puts them down or forgets when he hops in the shower and has to quickly reach out and put them on the counter…I don’t know what it is but Percy thinks they are some sort of creature that he must abscond with….needles to say we have had many a night with me scouring the floors looking for a wayward, very expensive, hearing aid—I think its the high pitch buzzing from the back feed, like with a sound system only on a tiny scale…he thinks it’s a bird or bug—but boy does he almost get in really big trouble 🙂
Wow, that is one expensive cat toy! It’s not really that the hearing is going per se, but that the interference from background noise is getting worse, I walk around staring at people like some crazy stalker so I can watch their lips. But, if we are alone, I do just fine. Getting older sucks sometimes.
Sucks big time–gregory reads lips all the time- he just doesn’t master all the words very well which can lead to some odd conversations
Yeah, that happened to me Monday night at Revival. Preacher did something new and different and didn’t warn me. He called the speaker up, then called me up. What he wanted was for me to “extend the hand of fellowship.” In other words shake the fellow’s hand and say a couple of nice things. Well, all I was was his lips moving, and I had no clue what he was saying. So, in the lack of any better idea, I said a prayer for the man. Not that that is a bad thing, but I felt rather stupid once I figured out what was actually going on!
Sounds like our little world—
I love this! I love this scripture showing that God sent his people into captivity but he was watching over them the whole time. He knows at times we must be chastened, disciplined, so that our bad traits/fruit are purged.
I too thought that something—no matter where they roamed and rambled, He was always with them…which is much needed reminder for me!!!
I’ve often said that from my view in the pulpit, I often see what I term “the painfully pious” look–it looks like they are chewing on a green persimmon in one side of their mouth, and a lemon peel on the other…. Great challenge for us all!
What a great way of looking at consternation😊