The pickled fickle issue at heart

 

We get ourselves in pickled messes

Feelings are fickle aren't they? They change often and vary from circumstance to circumstance. But that is what fickle means--changing frequently especially in regards to one’s loyalties, interests or affections. The appetitie appears not to be satisfied!

Fickleness is a variable that lies inside of a man that rises and ebbs with emotion.

Fickle is rooted in the old English word ficol which means deceitful. Ficol sounds like a natural born offshoot of the word "fool" to me.

"Oh what fickle, ficol, deceitful days as we wander in our wayward ways!" (I so want to rhyme fickle with pickle, but I will leave well enough alone.)

Even thousands of years ago, writers told of the fickleness of the heart and how it could not be trusted: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" Jeremiah 17:9.

Okay, so I have to pick back up the pickle. Preserving food was an important part of ancient life. If you could preserve food then you could have a continuous food source.  Pickling food was important. Napoleon offered a huge prize for anyone that could find the best way to use pickling to preserve food for his troops, according to the New York Food Museum.  

Being "in a pickle" means that you are in some sort of state, preserved there. In modern times, "being in a pickle" means some kind of  troubled state. Some perplexing problem caused by sippin' on intoxicating deceitful pickle juice.

Shakespeare, in the Tempest, said this about one man's, Trinculo's, pickled state:

Alonso: And Trinculo is reeling ripe:  Where should they find this grand liquor that hath gilded ‘em?–How camest thou in this pickle?

Trin: I have been in such a pickle, since I saw you last, that, I fear me, will never out of my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.

Maggots were thought to come from within a person upon death in Shakespeare’s day, but this fella Trinculo is so pickled with liquor he says that he shall be preserved from flies!

But Jeremiah was focused on a different kind of preservation. He desired for the nation of Israel to be preserved to the one true God. He poetically pleaded for them to repent of their wickedness and turn back to God,  and not allow man's natural deceitful heart to spoil and direct them.  Jeremiah weeps over sin, weeps over his persecution and weeps over the persecution of  his brothers in his namesake book in the Bible.

Jeremiah no doubt recognized how his own heart failed him, and how the hearts of those in Judah,  were deceived by their own fanning desires.  Judah was a territory but the heart of man was Jeremiah’s focus.

Jeremiah began his poetic ministry when he was about 20 years old, according to Bible scholars. That is a time in life where fickleness is nearly expected, but over his 40 or so years in the public spotlight, Jeremiah gained  influence even when his message was not popular. He is portrayed as a sort of Moses presiding over Israel, but when Israel was exiled from the Promise Land. What a task for a young man to accept and carry forward!  He observed the perverted worship that grew acceptable under the leaderships of kings, and would not let fickleness get established in his heart. Instead he continually preached against the folly of idolatry. His words were rejected but he kept preaching! But his prophesies came true!

 Jeremiah asks--Who can search out the heart to understand every motive behind every thought? Jeremiah recognized the heart is beyond cure. Left alone, it is beyond healing and beyond remedy.

The heart is in a fickle pickle! (I am sorry but its just goes together so easy!) It is always in a state of changeability, what kind of preservation is that?!  

 Man cannot rescue himself--his heart won't allow it. It is beyond curing itself. It is naturally born to be fickle, indecisive, inconsistent, changeable, capricious, vacillating, unpredictable, erratic! Oh, how I can hear some men say-- that sounds like a fickle woman! But fella, fickleness does not discriminate.

There is a curing factor for the heart that is marked with constancy, stability and steadfastness. And is gained only  through a relationship with a savior. A savior who is a rescuer, a rescuer who is a liberator. Liberating us out of our pickled fickle heart!

He redeems, purifies, cleanses, and heals our deceitful heart.  That is what my Jesus spiritedly does. He goes beyond. He went beyond the confinement of letters and marks of the Jewish law that attempted to monitor the heart, but failed. He went beyond the intent of the law to satisfy the heart of man with a new Spirit that we can become intoxicated by, if we are willing.

Praying for you and for me! Ashley