Jeremiah 24

Have you ever heard of the Mandelbrot set? The Wikipedia definition is “a mathematical set of points whose boundary is a distinctive and easily recognizable two-dimensional fractal shape.” If you have an afternoon to kill, google “Mandelbrot set” or “fractals” and prepare to be amazed.

In my extremely-limited understanding, this set of points is created by plugging values into a simple mathematical formula. And the thing I found interesting is that the values, when exposed to this equation, do one of two things: either they increase and “shoot off” toward infinity, or they very quickly collapse and “spiral down” to zero. The pictures created in a Mandelbrot set go on forever. You can “zoom in” to them ad infinitum and they will never end.

There is no middle ground. There are no values that, when plugged into the equation, remain the same. They either go in one direction or the other. There is no halfway.

Did you get the impression, from this chapter of Jeremiah, that we are also like these numbers? “After Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the officials, the skilled workers and the artisans of Judah were carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord. 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.’” (vs 1-3)

In the illustration God gave Jeremiah, there were no “halfway” figs. There were no “just okay” figs. They were either excellent figs, or they were abhorrent figs. And, of course, God used these figs as an illustration of the hearts of His people at the time. Some—even though they were in captivity—were truly committed to God. Others were rotten to the core.

The same is still true of us today. There are two baskets of figs, and we get to choose which one we’ll be in. If we commit ourselves and our healing to God, we will be excellent figs; if not, we’ll be abhorrent figs. We may choose which basket we will be in, but we may not choose to not be in one of these two baskets.

With God, there is no middle ground. His Spirit so fully and completely pursues us that there is no opportunity to remain unaffected. When we are exposed to God (as numerical values are exposed to the Mandelbrot equation), there is no “remaining the same.” We either go in one direction or the other. There is no halfway. There is no maybe. There is only an ultimate Yes or an ultimate No, an ultimate infinity or an ultimate nothingness.

Which way are you spiraling?