Rubik's Cube

Have you ever tried to figure out the Rubik’s Cube? When you solve the puzzle it’s supposed have each side be all the same color. I’ve tried several times but I just can’t do it, and yet some Rubik’s masters will solve the puzzle in just seconds regardless of how mixed-up the cube is when it is handed to them. While there are those who can figure out the cube, none of us can master the puzzle of the human heart.

• [9] "The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out. [10] But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be."
  Jeremiah 17:9-10 (MsgB)

We like to think that we are good people; after all there are lots of people out there who are worse than we are. We would never be as bad as Hitler, Hussein or anyone else who is truly evil right?

If you believe that lie then it just goes to prove how deceitful our hearts really are. If you were ask even the most evil of people, you would find out that they too believe they are good.

Just how mixed up are our hearts? Think about the words that preceded these given by the Lord to Jeremiah.

• [5] This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord [6]He will be like a bush in the wasteland . . . [7] But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.”

Jeremiah 17:5-7 (NIV)

Now be honest how many of us would like to have the opportunity to have the kind of money Bill Gates has? Or what about the 750 million dollars or so that’s up for grabs in Nicole Smith’s estate? We may not agree with their lifestyle and disregard for God, but it certainly does not appear that their life is cursed. How can their lives be considered a wasteland with all the things they have? And yet we struggle from paycheck to paycheck; is that a blessing?

Let’s be honest with each other sin pays well—in this lifetime. To solve the puzzle of our hearts we must learn to begin to look beyond the material to the spiritual—past the temporal to the eternal. Lord help our hearts to not be deceived and see things as they really are.