Fruit Inspection

"Well hello there young man." The elderly woman smiled and winked at my youngest boy.

"Hi." He gave her a bashful grin and peeked into her grocery cart.

Kregg was only three years old at the time. He sat perched in my grocery cart and talked with the stranger as if they were best friends. She told him about the things in her cart and then told him she liked the things in our cart.

A few minutes later, we left the woman to finish her shopping and walked toward the frozen section. Kregg immediately began looking over our grocery selections again.

"What are you looking for?" I quizzed.

"Just that junk that cute wrinkled lady was buyin'" He kept on digging through our selections.

"Like what, is there something special you want?"

"Nope, I just wanna make sure we don't got the same junk." He sighed and again went to digging in the cart. He passed bananas, boxed cereals, waffles and milk. Another sigh.

"Why don't you want the same groceries she has?" I wasn't catching on.

"Cause I don't wanna eat whatever made that lady all wrinkled up!"

Ok, so I admit, I laughed ... If only it were that simple. In the mind of a child it is simple and it should be simple. We finished our grocery shopping amidst a conversation on how you get wrinkles and that it has nothing to do with what you eat.

We raised our boys much the same as other parents. The typical conversation at the dinner table would include ... "drink all your milk, it makes your bones strong", "eat your veggies, they'll make you big and strong like Daddy" ...

So, in Kregg's mind, the woman got wrinkles from something she ate. At least at this point, I knew he was listening to me at the dinner table.

But, how often do I make sure my boys understand that same thing in their spiritual life? Do they understand that filling your mind with pure, right and good things ... will keep your heart and mind right with God?

If you fill your mind with junk ... than ... Basically, garbage in ... garbage out.

What we feed our minds and our spirit can change the way we behave. Spending time in God's word fills us with His light. Filling my grocery cart with the fruits of the spirit can be life changing.

So, what's in your grocery cart?

John 6:35 "Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. "


Proverbs 3:3 " Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart."


Galatians 5:22-23 "But, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control."