Andras Tamas is the name officials gave a certain man decades ago in a Russian psychiatric hospital. He’d been drafted into the army, but the authorities had mistaken his native Hungarian language for the gibberish of a lunatic and had him committed.

Then they forgot about him. For 53 years.

A few years ago a psychiatrist at the hospital began to realize what had happened and helped Tamas recover the memories of who he was and where he came from. He recently returned home to Budapest as a war hero, “the last prisoner of World War II.”

Not only had this man forgotten his real name, he hadn’t even seen his own face in five decades. So, according to one news account, “For hours, the old man studies the face in a mirror. The deep-set eyes. The gray stubble on the chin. The furrows of the brow. It is his face, but it is a startling revelation.”

Imagine looking at your own face in a mirror and not recognizing it. James 1:22-25 says that is just what people are doing when they listen to God’s Word but do not obey it. There, right before their eyes in Scripture, is an accurate reflection of themselves. But they don’t truly see—with the eyes of their hearts—what the Bible shows them.

Feeling footloose and frisky, a featherbrained fellow
Forced his fond father to fork over the farthings.
And flew far to foreign fields
And frittered his fortune feasting fabulously with faithless friends.
Fleeced by his fellows in folly, and facing famine,
He found himself a feed-flinger in a filthy farmyard.
Fairly famishing, he fain would have filled his frame
With foraged food from fodder fragments.
“Fooey, my father’s flunkies fare far finer, ”
The frazzled fugitive forlornly fumbled, frankly facing facts.
Frustrated by failure, and filled with foreboding,
He fled forthwith to his family.
Falling at his father’s feet, he forlornly fumbled,
“Father, I’ve flunked,
And fruitlessly forfeited family fellowship favor.”
The farsighted father, forestalling further flinching,
Frantically flagged the flunkies to
Fetch a fatling from the flock and fix a feast.
The fugitive’s faultfinding brother frowned
On fickle forgiveness of former folder.
But the faithful father figured,
“Filial fidelity is fine, but the fugitive is found!
What forbids fervent festivity?
Let flags be unfurled! Let fanfares flare!”
Father’s forgiveness formed the foundation
For the former fugitive’s future fortitude!

No rubber tire will remain buried. Most people, never having tried to bury a tire, are not  aware that one will not stay in the ground. In fact, if you bury a tire five feet below the surface, it will–under normal conditions–rise to the top in about ten  years.The reason for this is as follows:

The rubber tire, being resilient, is constantly pushing back against the soil around it. Since the pressure above the tire is less than below it, the tire has more success pushing up than it does pushing down. As this pushing proceeds, small particles of soil around the tire are dislodged and fall down through the cracks and crevices too small for the tire itself to fit through, a process that is accelerated somewhat by the slight movement of  the tire as it expands and contracts with changes in temperature. Thus, as the tire pushes upward and the soil around it slowly  moves down, the tire migrates toward the surface.

It’s the same with the human heart. What’s hidden away inside will inevitably rise to the surface!