Everything is beautiful at the ballet and our security dance at the airport is not much different. 

At the ballet, “graceful men lift lovely girls in white” while at the airport, we heft designer bags and shuffle beltless and barefoot in lines to be, scanned, puffed, patted and searched. 

It is “Places everyone!”  Stage left or gate B12.   “Remember the importance of keeping control!”  Be it pirouettes or your carry-on items, look sharp!  “Pay attention!”  If you see anyone engaged in “suspicious activities”, say lurking about back stage in a cape and half-faced mask or nonchalantly pulling packs of plastic explosives from a box of baby diapers in the rest room, report it immediately to the nearest law enforcement agent!  “And smile people!”  Remember, your audience is watching every your move and so are the cameras and the  “behavior detection officers” at screening checkpoints.

While recently participating in this ballet my husband and I witnessed something we had not seen before; a customs agent, accompanied by a beagle, was patrolling the area. The young dog, bright eyed and alert wagged his tail in obvious delight at being in the midst of so many people.  He was just the kind of dog you want to stop and pet but, knowing better than to mess with a member of the K-9 force, I kept my distance.   

We were still admiring the dog when quite suddenly he made a U-turn and began jumping up to sniff the backpack of a young man a few feet to our right.  The officer stopped him and asked, “Do you have some kind of fruit in there; maybe an apple or a banana?”  I wanted to hang back and see what would happen next, but my husband wisely caught my elbow and kept me moving. 

On the next leg of our journey, I could not get that little dog out of my mind.  Thinking about him another thought floated to the surface of my consciousness and, as the two thoughts came together, I saw the perfect solution for a dilemma with which I have struggled for some time i.e. the difference between judging another and spiritual discernment.

It is a well known teaching of Christ that we are not to judge one another.  He alone can know the hearts of men. However, He also instructed us to be on the lookout for wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing and for wise discernment to recognize the difference between true followers of His and others who are anything but!?  So how do I do that?  How do I keep from judging a fellow believer while steering clear of wolves? 

Enter my encounter with the furry, four-legged inspector.  Look for the fruit!  Not the kind that grows on trees but rather the kind that grows in the hearts of men that is easy to spot by the way they act and consistently live their lives.  The apostle Paul talked about this kind of fruit in his letter to the Galatians and described it as being love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness and faith. Bad trees cannot bear good fruit.  

Eugene H. Peterson in his modern day paraphrase of Matthews’s gospel puts it this way in The Message:  “Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don't be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. These diseased trees with their bad apples are going to be chopped down and burned.”

Sad to say these diseased trees with their bad apples can do a lot of damage before they are discovered and are sometimes hard to spot. Therefore, my job is to keep my eyes and ears open and, like the airport beagle, be a good fruit inspector!