Jeremiah  17:9,  “The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Boy, Jeremiah loved that word deceitful.  Here it is again. Only unlike Jeremiah 20:7 where he uses the word patah which is rendered as deceived  in many translations but has more of the idea of being seduced or persuaded, this time the word which is rendered in English as deceit is ‘aqob in Hebrew and not patah.  Maybe it is not so much Jeremiah who likes that word deceit so much as it is the translators. Nonetheless here I am once again looking at this word deceit. When I started my journey into silence in the Catskills I asked the Lord for a word to describe this special time of silence and what word do I get?  Deceit. 

God and I went off on another journey into the Catskill mountains  this morning. As I have done each morning, I asked the Lord,  “Where to?”  This morning I feel prompted to travel below the mountains and to look up. This is when I  realized I came to the Catskills at the perfect time of year.  The leaves are just beginning to change color.  I look up at the tree covered mountains which is like looking at a lush tapestry of multiple colors.  It is as if every tree on the mountain is flush with multicolored leaves, so full and lush it is almost like a bouquet of flowers.  I commented to God how His mountain is so full of beauty, so rich as if every tree is covered in a glorious blanket of leaves. The entire foliage was luxuriant and perfect.

There is a side road leading up into the mountain and I sense that still small voice guiding me to follow this road. As I drive into the mountain I become aware of the fact that I am driving right through this rich and perfect garden that I saw from the base of the mountain.  It took me a while to realize this because things did not seem as perfect up close.  I was surrounded by dead trees, trees which were only half filled with leaves while the other half appeared dead and lifeless. The ground was covered with decaying and rotting vegetation.  The foliage here did not seem as luxuriant as it did from a distance. It was not as beautiful and perfect looking  up close as it was from a distance.

I sensed God whispering to me, “That is your heart.”  I had to pull to the side of the road because I began to weep.  I understood why God took me out this morning to the base of the mountain and then into its interior. I realize that people look at me from the distance like I looked at the Catskills.  They read my blog or my books and think I am some sort of  guru who has all his spiritual ducks in a row and walks around singing hymns 24/7.  They see my heart from a distance and they remark, “My, my and what a spiritual giant you are.  Oy, you have such a heart for God. Come, Come everyone, let us sit under the teachings of this great man of God.”  Yet, God is not looking at my heart from a distance, He is traveling through the interior of my heart and it does not look so beautiful inside. It is not this symbol of purity that my blog and books portray. When God sees my heart He sees a lot of dead wood, scatter ruins, decay and rot which are masked to the outside world as the tops of the trees with its colorful leaves mask the dead ugly waste inside this mountain.

As I weep I feel so ashamed of myself.  How dare I demand that God give me some special revelation, a miracle or a sign.  How dare I ask anything of God when my heart is filled with such deceit and pride. When I just lap up all the positive reviews on my books like a thirsty dog lapping up water from a stream.  How dare I ask God for something special when I practice little deceits and cover-ups.  When I pretend to be such an intelligent and knowledgeable person so people will stand in awe of me.  Yet, fearing that one day Toto will pull back the curtain and reveal that this great Hebrew teaching wizard is nothing more than a friendly little guy holding his kingdom together with a lot of bluff and bluster.

How dare I come to the Catskills and tell God, “Well, here I am spending all my time with you, worshipping you, giving you my full attention and even sacrificing areas of my life for you.  Surely, you will say, ‘Oy, and such good things you have done for me Bunkie, surely you have earned yourself a miracle or two.’”

I weep before God confessing that I am just a fraud, a phony who has no more of the Holy Spirit than that uneducated country preacher who just preaches from his heart.

I look at that word ‘aqob and I find it comes from a Semitic root meaning a hill, a slippery hill. I recall walking down a little hill yesterday to get to a stream at the base of the mountain  and suddenly I realized that it was slippery. It wasn’t until I was sliding down the hill that I it dawned on me that it was steeper and slippery than I had anticipated. So too, like my heart. I look at it and see a little cliff, a little sin, a little lie, a little deceit and think nothing of it, it’s ok, no one is getting hurt, in fact it may even be helpful to others,  but then it is nothing more than a slippery slope and I find myself falling into a deeper sin.  The heart is slippery, sly, and insidious, it can easily fool you.

I will tell you one thing about New York, it has a lot of hills. As I am traveling up a hill, I cannot see what is over the top and on the other side.  This is so like my heart, so hilly and no one can really see what is on the other side, the side I have hidden except God and  I can tell that He is not too happy about it.

How does the KJV say it, the heart is desperately wicked?   The word wicked in the Hebrew here is ‘anash. This is not one of your ra words which is the usual Hebrew word to express wickedness.  ‘Anash means to be sickly, weak and frail.  In this verse it is used as a passive participle meaning woefully sick.  As I looked around at all the dead and dying trees and rotting, decaying leaves in this forest that were all covered up by a top layer of the luxuriant  foliage of the other trees, I realized  that all the compliments and praise I received from my books and writings only provided a luxuriant foliage to cover up a sick heart.

I considered last night how I sense God was asking me to pray for a healing but I keep heroically telling Him, “Nay, I shan’t seek this time for self-edification. I am not here to bribe God into healing my infirmities there were more important things than my health at stake here.  I can live with my infirmities. Yet, now I realize that God was asking me to pray for a healing for my sick heart.  I can live with physical infirmities but I cannot live with a sick heart, I need a healing from God for my sick heart and so I parked my car, walked into the woods and laid down in all that rotting and decaying vegetation and let God  overhaul my engine.

After a refreshing time of confession and spiritual healing, I sense God telling to get up and  drive out of the Catskills and go to a nearby town about fifteen miles outside the Catskills mountains. Apparently there is something else He wanted to show me.