When we take a tea bag, place it in a teacup, and fill the cup with hot water, the water activates the tea in the bag, unleashing its taste into the water around it.
The hot water didn't create the taste; it merely revealed, or drew out, what was already in the bag.
This depicts what happens in the human heart. The pressures around us (the unfavorable circumstances, the temptations, and the commands of God to love Him and our neighbor) merely draw out of our heart what is already in it.
We cannot blame the hot water for the taste in the cup. The contents of the tea bag determine the flavor of the tea. If we don't like the particular taste, we need to put into the water a bag containing a different kind of tea.
Similarly, we cannot shift the blame for any bitterness, anger, despair, deception, cruelty, and so forth that we display when we are under pressure. The pressures merely expose how unlike Christ we really are.
{From Changed Into His Image, pg 4, by Jim Berg. Tea bag illustration adapted from J. Allan Petersen, Your Reactions Are Showing, pg 14-15}
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