The onion is a culinary masterpiece when it comes to savory dishes. As far as I am concerned, all you need is an onion, some garlic, salt and pepper in order to cook any main course. Without the onion, your food will sink in the taste test. I use onions and garlic in almost all my dishes because I love the taste they add to roasted vegetables, fish, and poultry. In my home, the onion reigns supreme in the kitchen, and I am proud of it.

Onions are always on my grocery list. I want to make sure I am never without them. So, when I purchased some locally grown collards, I made sure I had onions with which to marry the two. I was excited to cook the greens, so I eagerly grabbed the biggest, most attractive onion from my onion basket to begin the exercise. The onion looked appealing. It was truly attractive with its large round body.  It had just the right hue and I was certain it was unblemished. I cut open the onion thinking it would surely do my greens justice, but when I sliced it in two, I was astonished to see that one side had blackness in the center. It had begun to rot. My mouth hung open and my eyes did a double take. “This can’t be true!” I thought. The onion had deceived me. It looked perfect on the outside, but the inside was far from it.

At that very moment, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, “Janet, if you don’t stay in my Word and follow me closely, you too will be like the onion.” I began to process the gentle exhortation and my heart nodded in agreement. If I do not maintain my prayer time, my quiet time in the Word, and my time in meditation, then I will function OK for a while; but I will not have the true stamina and depth that God wants me to have. I must be truly grounded if I want to be a woman after God’s own heart. As a teacher of God’s Word, I cannot be matter-of-fact about my inside—my heart. My heart condition is God’s utmost concern. My behavior is His priority. My walk is His testimony. I have to be true if I am going to be clean. Like the onion, I will deceive you if I do not yield to the Holy Spirit’s work consistently. My heart will be tainted and tarnished and dark without the light of Christ penetrating within.

Look around and you will see that it is easy to become laden down with the cares of the day: the cleaning, the washing, the ironing, the E-mails, the Facebook, the Twitter, the phone calls, the books to read, the friendships to maintain, the packages to mail, the pets to feed, the cars to wash, the yard to clean, the house to tidy, the husband to nourish, the children to feed…. Get the picture! It takes consistent prioritizing to make Christ the center of our every day. If He gets further and further down the To-do list, you fill find that your center—your heart—will become like the deceptive onion.  That does not happen overnight, but it will happen over time. May the layers of our being, be perforated with the love, grace, holiness, and purity of Almighty God. When peeled back, we should be like our Lord in every way.

A word from the Word

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.” 1 Peter 1:13-16

Petition

Dear Lord, I have been like the onion at different points in my life and that is not my desire. I want to be true in the deep recesses of my heart. I want you to have access to the layers of my heart so you can search me and form me into your likeness. I want Christ to reign supreme in my life. Help me, Lord, to ascertain the power of Christ’s resurrection through the reading of His Word and daily confessions of who I am in Christ.