I thought about Exodus 32:20 a lot this summer. Assumptions, friendships that I'd centered myself on collapsed, and when it seemed like all my ideals were in powder at my feet- were a choking taste in my mouth- I couldn't help but be reminded of the Israelites' experience.
Picture it- sunrise in the desert. Cold sand rolling beneath your feet. Perhaps a carpet of grey mist lurking at the base of the towering, rugged peak of Mt. Sinai. Rocky outcroppings lit to gold as the sun looms on the horizon. Scarlet streaks burning across the lightening sky. Behind a newly built altar, the crude figure of a calf, molded of fine, heavy gold, glints in the icy morning light. People threading their paths like spectres through the rocks. The bellowing of terrified livestock. The sick-sweet smell of blood as the ritual sacrifices are performed. And then, the smoke of thousands of cooking fires rising across the camp as the day of feasting begins. It says in verse six:
"...the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry."
Hundreds of drums thump and echo among the rocks. Long wailing notes are blown. A shower of music jangles from tambourines. Bare brown feet dance rythmically, pounding the sparsely planted earth. Laughter rings out from swaying leathern tents. Children chase each other gleefully in the open spaces. Eager, loud, excited masses mill about.
Moses struck this holiday crowd like a tornado.
Exodus 32:19-20
"When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it."
Sooner or later we always 'drink' the consequences of our sin. Israel tasted the bitterness of idolatry right down to the last of its very literally bitter dregs.
I wrote the following poem this summer, intended to be from the perspective of a young Israelite woman in Moses' camp:
They poured the shimmering stream into the mold
I watched, in nervous awe
To see in that bright rush of molten gold
The dimming of the Law-
The flash of seeming power-
In that hot brilliance, pleasure taking shape;
The form of my desire.
I watch the fire
Flare up and die, recalling how he came
A thunderclap from God, a storm of rage
And sick disgust- the crash of broken stone
That shattered my hard heart- his words of scorn-
A flicking lash which all at once laid bare
My vain pretensions, and my childish fears.
I still can taste
That terrible, glittering draught of molten shame;
It mocked me with its gleam
Oh God, my God!
The ashes of my idol are bitter in my mouth.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Asleep in the Light
This was written by John Zumwalt, a Taiwanese missionary who is now a church planter in Oklahoma and the director of Beautiful Feet Boot Camp. You may not agree with everything he says here, but I found this article very thought-provoking and convicting:
"Watch out for little boys named Samuel. Little Samuel had his hand raised, and he was poised to answer the question. My wife, Jamie, and I were in Sheridan, Wyoming for a weekend of meetings. One was a local Christian school's morning chapel service. As we talked to the kids about Taiwan, I watched Samuel's eyes light up with what I thought was normal excitement about the exotic and far away places, but now I think that there was something more.
As we explained the daily fear that the Taiwanese experience from "ghosts" and evil spirits, the children began to understand the Taiwanese people's need for Jesus. I talked about the idols that were made of stone and wood which sat in the temples never moving, and how the priests would beat on drums or bang on gongs to awaken their god. I then asked the children, "Do we have to wake up our God?" "NOOOO!" the children yelled back (Ps.121).But Samuel had his hand held high . . .
Quietly he said, "No, we don't have to wake Him, but sometimes He has to wake us." Suddenly it wasn't Samuel, the boy, talking to me, but God speaking through Samuel, the prophet.
Prophets come in different shapes and sizes, and different levels of obedience. Take Jonah for example. He heard God's command to go to Nineveh, and yet he ran . . . as though there was some place to run. Who can flee from the presence of God? As the story unfolds, he tries to hide in a ship going the wrong way, and God sends a mighty storm. The waves were towering and crashing upon the ship enough to alarm this sea-hardened crew. In sheer terror, they began to make offerings and sacrifices to their gods, begging for mercy and protection. As the storm raged, they grabbed all the merchandise that they were hauling, all that was to be their source of profit, and cast it overboard trying to help the ship stay afloat. Still death was imminent. All this while the prophet of God, the one who knew the Maker of the land and the sea, the wind and the waves, slept unconcerned in the hull below.
Have you seen the planet lately? I have. I've watched as people smash spiked balls into their faces and slice their backs open with swords, all in honor of their idol. I know of children's summer camps to which parents send their kids just for the purpose of becoming demon possessed, so they can then return back home with profit potential through healing, fortune telling or demon exorcisms. I've read of cyclones smashing into Bangladesh killing hundreds of thousands in one blow. I hear of entire ethnic groups wiped out because of hatred and others starved to the brink of extinction. All of the world's peoples are caught in the giant storm of life. It inevitably signals their death. In sheer terror, they rush to worship whatever deity they have, sacrificing and begging for survival. All of their cries go unheard and unheeded, so in greater desperation they throw everything they own and care about to their false gods, and still the storm rages unabated, destroying young and old alike. And those who know nothing about Jesus, those who have never even had the opportunity to hear of Him, die; fifty-five thousand of them every day fall into eternity without Jesus.
Jonah was asleep in the hull. The captain came down and roared, "Is now the time to sleep?" Our Captain is calling to the Church today in no uncertain terms, "IS NOW THE TIME TO SLEEP? I gave you the commission to go, yet you run, covering your ears with petty concerns and little ambitions for your own well being. You get into a vessel of your own choosing for a destination of selfishness. But I gave everything, left security and My comforts that you might have life. Why then do you, who call yourselves by My Name, refuse to rescue the perishing? Why do so many Christians honor Me with their lips, but refuse to imitate Me with their lives? With half the world knowing nothing about Me, is now the time to sleep?"
Some years ago a minister was traveling in a car; his wife and a young son, a boy eight years old, were with him in the front seat. They were traveling through hilly country, and the road was wet. A car going in the same direction passed them at a terrific rate of speed. As they came over a hill, they saw the car again, just as the young man driving it lost control, and it turned across the highway. Coming from the other direction was another car, also traveling at a high speed, and it crashed into the first one. In a moment the highway was littered with debris and with the torn, broken bodies of the occupants of both cars.
The little boy saw the catastrophe. He became pale as a sheet. He did not speak a word the rest of the way. In fact, none of them did. They had nothing to say.
When they arrived at their destination, the parents were disturbed at their son's nervousness. They put him to bed. Ten o'clock came; then eleven; then twelve; then after twelve-and still the boy remained awake.
His father sat beside him, trying to calm him, and said, "Sweet-heart, won't you try to sleep?"
Suddenly the little fellow's emotions overcame him. He burst into tears and said, "Daddy, when people die, can we sleep?"
It seems we can. Like Jonah we seem to sleep without regard to the terror the unreached peoples face. Because we are in our eternal security, we have nary a thought as to their predicament. We sing Sunday after Sunday about the great salvation that is ours and only occasionally, and begrudgingly at that, give a week over to "them" and their concerns. Keith Green, who passed away in 1982, said it best, "He rose from the grave! And you can't even get out of bed."
One day, while I was not sleeping, I had a dream. Some would call it a vision. I was standing on cracked and dry earth that stretched out before me like a giant plain. The sun beat hotly on me as I surveyed the three figures in front of me. You have seen them before: three starving boys. Victims of a famine. Crouched weakly on the ground, all three were in desperate need of life-giving sustenance. The reddish hair, the protruding belly, (all tell-tale signs of malnutrition) struck an eerie contrast to the skeleton-like bodies, too weak to lift a hand and chase away the flies that crawled about them.
Each of the three boys had a plate. On the first boy's plate was an unbelievable sight. It was piled high with food. Roasted chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, bread and more. So much food was on this first boy's plate that some of it had spilled off and was now on the ground around the plate. It was literally full and overflowing. The mystery was that although he had plenty of food to survive and regain health, the boy was still starving. It looked to me as though he had not eaten anything, though if he wanted to, he clearly could.
On the second boy's plate was a healthy serving of food. It wasn't a pile like the first, but enough to sustain the boy and provide his body with all the much needed proteins, vitamins and nutrients. But just like the first boy, the second boy wasn't eating. There it was: everything they needed for life! Yet, they would not. Instead, they sat there getting worse with each passing moment. It was then that I noticed the last boy.
I don't know why I didn't look to him sooner, but he was the last boy on which I fixed my attention. This third boy was dying, even as the first two were. He also had a plate before him, but there was no food on it. There wasn't even a crumb. It was empty. I looked at that precious third child and knew that he didn't even have a chance at food. His dark eyes looked back at me and still do.
I suddenly knew that I was not alone in this vision. Jesus was guiding me through it. He stood behind me and gently touched my arms as He spoke, "Who will you feed?" I looked down at my hands, and in them I had food ... not a pile ... only enough to give to one of the boys. All three were starving, but the first two had an option. They could choose to eat. The third boy had no option. As it stood right then, he would starve to death without ever having a chance at food. My decision was obvious. My food would go to the third plate.
The third plate. I think that most of us look at it last or give it last place on our priority list. I know of many well-intentioned churches and individuals who will talk about it, but they never practically get around to seeing any food getting to the third plate. Somehow it all ends up in the first or at best the second plate.
Am I talking a mystery to you? Let me speak clearly. I quote Oswald Smith, the founder of Faith Promise, when I say, "What right do we have to preach the Gospel to anyone twice, while there are those who have yet to hear it once?" How can we continue to turn a deaf ear to the cries of those who are looking into a night with no dawn, a future without hope, an eternity without Jesus. Dear friends, Jesus always places us between Himself and the multitudes. His command is still the same, "You feed them." "
(This article is an adaptation of a sermon by John W. Zumwalt.)
"Watch out for little boys named Samuel. Little Samuel had his hand raised, and he was poised to answer the question. My wife, Jamie, and I were in Sheridan, Wyoming for a weekend of meetings. One was a local Christian school's morning chapel service. As we talked to the kids about Taiwan, I watched Samuel's eyes light up with what I thought was normal excitement about the exotic and far away places, but now I think that there was something more.
As we explained the daily fear that the Taiwanese experience from "ghosts" and evil spirits, the children began to understand the Taiwanese people's need for Jesus. I talked about the idols that were made of stone and wood which sat in the temples never moving, and how the priests would beat on drums or bang on gongs to awaken their god. I then asked the children, "Do we have to wake up our God?" "NOOOO!" the children yelled back (Ps.121).But Samuel had his hand held high . . .
Quietly he said, "No, we don't have to wake Him, but sometimes He has to wake us." Suddenly it wasn't Samuel, the boy, talking to me, but God speaking through Samuel, the prophet.
Prophets come in different shapes and sizes, and different levels of obedience. Take Jonah for example. He heard God's command to go to Nineveh, and yet he ran . . . as though there was some place to run. Who can flee from the presence of God? As the story unfolds, he tries to hide in a ship going the wrong way, and God sends a mighty storm. The waves were towering and crashing upon the ship enough to alarm this sea-hardened crew. In sheer terror, they began to make offerings and sacrifices to their gods, begging for mercy and protection. As the storm raged, they grabbed all the merchandise that they were hauling, all that was to be their source of profit, and cast it overboard trying to help the ship stay afloat. Still death was imminent. All this while the prophet of God, the one who knew the Maker of the land and the sea, the wind and the waves, slept unconcerned in the hull below.
Have you seen the planet lately? I have. I've watched as people smash spiked balls into their faces and slice their backs open with swords, all in honor of their idol. I know of children's summer camps to which parents send their kids just for the purpose of becoming demon possessed, so they can then return back home with profit potential through healing, fortune telling or demon exorcisms. I've read of cyclones smashing into Bangladesh killing hundreds of thousands in one blow. I hear of entire ethnic groups wiped out because of hatred and others starved to the brink of extinction. All of the world's peoples are caught in the giant storm of life. It inevitably signals their death. In sheer terror, they rush to worship whatever deity they have, sacrificing and begging for survival. All of their cries go unheard and unheeded, so in greater desperation they throw everything they own and care about to their false gods, and still the storm rages unabated, destroying young and old alike. And those who know nothing about Jesus, those who have never even had the opportunity to hear of Him, die; fifty-five thousand of them every day fall into eternity without Jesus.
Jonah was asleep in the hull. The captain came down and roared, "Is now the time to sleep?" Our Captain is calling to the Church today in no uncertain terms, "IS NOW THE TIME TO SLEEP? I gave you the commission to go, yet you run, covering your ears with petty concerns and little ambitions for your own well being. You get into a vessel of your own choosing for a destination of selfishness. But I gave everything, left security and My comforts that you might have life. Why then do you, who call yourselves by My Name, refuse to rescue the perishing? Why do so many Christians honor Me with their lips, but refuse to imitate Me with their lives? With half the world knowing nothing about Me, is now the time to sleep?"
Some years ago a minister was traveling in a car; his wife and a young son, a boy eight years old, were with him in the front seat. They were traveling through hilly country, and the road was wet. A car going in the same direction passed them at a terrific rate of speed. As they came over a hill, they saw the car again, just as the young man driving it lost control, and it turned across the highway. Coming from the other direction was another car, also traveling at a high speed, and it crashed into the first one. In a moment the highway was littered with debris and with the torn, broken bodies of the occupants of both cars.
The little boy saw the catastrophe. He became pale as a sheet. He did not speak a word the rest of the way. In fact, none of them did. They had nothing to say.
When they arrived at their destination, the parents were disturbed at their son's nervousness. They put him to bed. Ten o'clock came; then eleven; then twelve; then after twelve-and still the boy remained awake.
His father sat beside him, trying to calm him, and said, "Sweet-heart, won't you try to sleep?"
Suddenly the little fellow's emotions overcame him. He burst into tears and said, "Daddy, when people die, can we sleep?"
It seems we can. Like Jonah we seem to sleep without regard to the terror the unreached peoples face. Because we are in our eternal security, we have nary a thought as to their predicament. We sing Sunday after Sunday about the great salvation that is ours and only occasionally, and begrudgingly at that, give a week over to "them" and their concerns. Keith Green, who passed away in 1982, said it best, "He rose from the grave! And you can't even get out of bed."
One day, while I was not sleeping, I had a dream. Some would call it a vision. I was standing on cracked and dry earth that stretched out before me like a giant plain. The sun beat hotly on me as I surveyed the three figures in front of me. You have seen them before: three starving boys. Victims of a famine. Crouched weakly on the ground, all three were in desperate need of life-giving sustenance. The reddish hair, the protruding belly, (all tell-tale signs of malnutrition) struck an eerie contrast to the skeleton-like bodies, too weak to lift a hand and chase away the flies that crawled about them.
Each of the three boys had a plate. On the first boy's plate was an unbelievable sight. It was piled high with food. Roasted chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, bread and more. So much food was on this first boy's plate that some of it had spilled off and was now on the ground around the plate. It was literally full and overflowing. The mystery was that although he had plenty of food to survive and regain health, the boy was still starving. It looked to me as though he had not eaten anything, though if he wanted to, he clearly could.
On the second boy's plate was a healthy serving of food. It wasn't a pile like the first, but enough to sustain the boy and provide his body with all the much needed proteins, vitamins and nutrients. But just like the first boy, the second boy wasn't eating. There it was: everything they needed for life! Yet, they would not. Instead, they sat there getting worse with each passing moment. It was then that I noticed the last boy.
I don't know why I didn't look to him sooner, but he was the last boy on which I fixed my attention. This third boy was dying, even as the first two were. He also had a plate before him, but there was no food on it. There wasn't even a crumb. It was empty. I looked at that precious third child and knew that he didn't even have a chance at food. His dark eyes looked back at me and still do.
I suddenly knew that I was not alone in this vision. Jesus was guiding me through it. He stood behind me and gently touched my arms as He spoke, "Who will you feed?" I looked down at my hands, and in them I had food ... not a pile ... only enough to give to one of the boys. All three were starving, but the first two had an option. They could choose to eat. The third boy had no option. As it stood right then, he would starve to death without ever having a chance at food. My decision was obvious. My food would go to the third plate.
The third plate. I think that most of us look at it last or give it last place on our priority list. I know of many well-intentioned churches and individuals who will talk about it, but they never practically get around to seeing any food getting to the third plate. Somehow it all ends up in the first or at best the second plate.
Am I talking a mystery to you? Let me speak clearly. I quote Oswald Smith, the founder of Faith Promise, when I say, "What right do we have to preach the Gospel to anyone twice, while there are those who have yet to hear it once?" How can we continue to turn a deaf ear to the cries of those who are looking into a night with no dawn, a future without hope, an eternity without Jesus. Dear friends, Jesus always places us between Himself and the multitudes. His command is still the same, "You feed them." "
(This article is an adaptation of a sermon by John W. Zumwalt.)
Friday, September 3, 2010
Waiting for the Lilies
"The girl looked round her ravaged garden, seeing only the torn soil, and gaping hole where her Rose had bloomed, and feeling the fearsome smart of her gashed hands.
"I am not sorry", she said- but wept.
That night, her head throbbed with a leaden ache, and the tears came even in her sleep. She seemed to wander through a terrible maze of dreams, and always awoke grief-stricken, and with a keen sense of loss. It was as though she had held the world in her hand, and watched it trickle through her fingers and out of reach over, and over again.
And yet, the morning dawned at last, and she awoke to find a delicious perfume wafting through the garden in an almost tangible cloud. She sat up and looked round- and there, at her feet, and all throughout the garden, were springing up tall, graceful lilies of burning white, with starry glowings of gold in their slender throats, and a sweet, spicy fragrance breathing from every flower. There was an irresistible sense of GROWING in the air- she almost expected to find herself shooting upward as rapidly as the lilies. A strange, joyous melody began to play through her head (which did not ache now at all!)- and then words came, until at last, the song went like this:
'Awake, awake, O Northern wind,
And come, O Southern breeze!
Blow now upon my garden- send
To Him that holds its keys,
My garden's fragrance, spread abroad,
So that He will make haste-
My garden's gate's unbarred for Him-
Its choice fruits He must taste!'
Within an hour, the lilies had blanketed every bare space in her garden- all but the crater which had been the Rose's bed. This lay as darkly as ever amid the white sea of flowers. But she thought of the terrible scars in the Master Gardener's hands, and so, was content to have it left so, a 'wound' upon her garden- blooming there like a crushed and broken blossom from the sunless land of grief and thwarted hopes.
And so things remain.'"
I wrote these words several months ago in my entry 'The Gardener and His Servant'.
It has been a long while, and there are still days when I feel like nothing will ever grow in the 'garden' of my life again. The lilies bloom for elusive moments here and there, and are gone, leaving the torn and gaping soil desolate. It seems, some days, that I have been waiting all my life for lilies. Will the lilies ever take root and stay?
Today, Autumn rushed across the campus in a blast of cold wind. No 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' was this afternoon, but something wild, and sad, and fiercely elemental. I suppose it captured my imagination because, just now, I feel much more attuned to Autumn than to any other season. Not the burgeoning, tingling hope of Spring, the lazy happiness of summer, nor yet the bleak despair of winter, but wistful, vibrant, half-regretful Autumn, savoring its memories with cool-misted wonder, and packing them away for eternity between golden leaves.
I walked out to the 'Secret Garden', an old homestead near the campus. All the trees were tossing their heads in preparation for a storm. Yellow walnut leaves swirled across the gray, racing-clouded sky and over the wet fields and wet gray road like snow in a snowglobe. When I reached the homestead, I stepped through dark blue, rain-drenched cedars, across the silver-pearled grass to the gnarled pear trees.
The best pears in the world grow here- tart and electrifyingly intense, spurting juice in your mouth like nectar. And they taste so much better when you look up and see them hanging in clusters, gold and brown speckled glopes framed in shining green leaves, and reach up through the wet branches to pick them, with cold raindrops shaking down onto your face.
As I stood in the drenched grass, munching my pear, I began to turn this thought over in my mind: 'Fruit trees bear their fruit in season.' I know that's kind of a 'duh', right? But it's so true! This Spring I reveled in those same trees with their fluttering wedding-cake profusion of pink and white blossoms. That was the season for budding, for flowering and pollination. I watched them, cloaked modestly in green, looking like 'ordinary' trees during the summer, while the tiny pearlets swelled and slowly began to ripen. I have stood beside their shivering, naked silhouettes in sober desolation during the cold months. All of these phases are necessary and good to the pear tree. Why should I rebel against the 'seasons' in my life?
Maybe this is not the blossom time for me. Maybe the fragrant, lily-brimming moments seem few and far between. Every garden needs its Winters as well as Springs. Flowers are not the goal- fruit is. God promises in Galatians that 'at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.' Therefore 'let us not become weary in doing good'. Let us not break our hearts for dead roses or elusive lilies. I am not intended to spend the energies of my heart in waiting for the lilies, but rather to spend my life in eagerly expecting my Savior, loving Him with heart, soul, mind and strength! I am shaken and humbled by the power of that truth.
The God who conquered death and shattered the power of the grave- who paints breathtaking landscapes and wrenches me to tears with the beauty of His skies loved you and I even before the foundation of the world! In Him I am a new creation, a lovingly designed Eden flourishing again beneath His skilled and tender hands. I accept the plans of my wise Gardener. 'Now the Lord God had planted a garden...' (Genesis 2:8). Who am I to doubt that His garden will bring forth its fruit in the proper season?
John 15:1-4, 16
'I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you....' 'You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit- fruit that will last....'
That promise is a 'lily' that will not slip between my fingers. And when He comes, then, oh THEN what a riot of flowers there will be!
"I am not sorry", she said- but wept.
That night, her head throbbed with a leaden ache, and the tears came even in her sleep. She seemed to wander through a terrible maze of dreams, and always awoke grief-stricken, and with a keen sense of loss. It was as though she had held the world in her hand, and watched it trickle through her fingers and out of reach over, and over again.
And yet, the morning dawned at last, and she awoke to find a delicious perfume wafting through the garden in an almost tangible cloud. She sat up and looked round- and there, at her feet, and all throughout the garden, were springing up tall, graceful lilies of burning white, with starry glowings of gold in their slender throats, and a sweet, spicy fragrance breathing from every flower. There was an irresistible sense of GROWING in the air- she almost expected to find herself shooting upward as rapidly as the lilies. A strange, joyous melody began to play through her head (which did not ache now at all!)- and then words came, until at last, the song went like this:
'Awake, awake, O Northern wind,
And come, O Southern breeze!
Blow now upon my garden- send
To Him that holds its keys,
My garden's fragrance, spread abroad,
So that He will make haste-
My garden's gate's unbarred for Him-
Its choice fruits He must taste!'
Within an hour, the lilies had blanketed every bare space in her garden- all but the crater which had been the Rose's bed. This lay as darkly as ever amid the white sea of flowers. But she thought of the terrible scars in the Master Gardener's hands, and so, was content to have it left so, a 'wound' upon her garden- blooming there like a crushed and broken blossom from the sunless land of grief and thwarted hopes.
And so things remain.'"
I wrote these words several months ago in my entry 'The Gardener and His Servant'.
It has been a long while, and there are still days when I feel like nothing will ever grow in the 'garden' of my life again. The lilies bloom for elusive moments here and there, and are gone, leaving the torn and gaping soil desolate. It seems, some days, that I have been waiting all my life for lilies. Will the lilies ever take root and stay?
Today, Autumn rushed across the campus in a blast of cold wind. No 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' was this afternoon, but something wild, and sad, and fiercely elemental. I suppose it captured my imagination because, just now, I feel much more attuned to Autumn than to any other season. Not the burgeoning, tingling hope of Spring, the lazy happiness of summer, nor yet the bleak despair of winter, but wistful, vibrant, half-regretful Autumn, savoring its memories with cool-misted wonder, and packing them away for eternity between golden leaves.
I walked out to the 'Secret Garden', an old homestead near the campus. All the trees were tossing their heads in preparation for a storm. Yellow walnut leaves swirled across the gray, racing-clouded sky and over the wet fields and wet gray road like snow in a snowglobe. When I reached the homestead, I stepped through dark blue, rain-drenched cedars, across the silver-pearled grass to the gnarled pear trees.
The best pears in the world grow here- tart and electrifyingly intense, spurting juice in your mouth like nectar. And they taste so much better when you look up and see them hanging in clusters, gold and brown speckled glopes framed in shining green leaves, and reach up through the wet branches to pick them, with cold raindrops shaking down onto your face.
As I stood in the drenched grass, munching my pear, I began to turn this thought over in my mind: 'Fruit trees bear their fruit in season.' I know that's kind of a 'duh', right? But it's so true! This Spring I reveled in those same trees with their fluttering wedding-cake profusion of pink and white blossoms. That was the season for budding, for flowering and pollination. I watched them, cloaked modestly in green, looking like 'ordinary' trees during the summer, while the tiny pearlets swelled and slowly began to ripen. I have stood beside their shivering, naked silhouettes in sober desolation during the cold months. All of these phases are necessary and good to the pear tree. Why should I rebel against the 'seasons' in my life?
Maybe this is not the blossom time for me. Maybe the fragrant, lily-brimming moments seem few and far between. Every garden needs its Winters as well as Springs. Flowers are not the goal- fruit is. God promises in Galatians that 'at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.' Therefore 'let us not become weary in doing good'. Let us not break our hearts for dead roses or elusive lilies. I am not intended to spend the energies of my heart in waiting for the lilies, but rather to spend my life in eagerly expecting my Savior, loving Him with heart, soul, mind and strength! I am shaken and humbled by the power of that truth.
The God who conquered death and shattered the power of the grave- who paints breathtaking landscapes and wrenches me to tears with the beauty of His skies loved you and I even before the foundation of the world! In Him I am a new creation, a lovingly designed Eden flourishing again beneath His skilled and tender hands. I accept the plans of my wise Gardener. 'Now the Lord God had planted a garden...' (Genesis 2:8). Who am I to doubt that His garden will bring forth its fruit in the proper season?
John 15:1-4, 16
'I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you....' 'You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit- fruit that will last....'
That promise is a 'lily' that will not slip between my fingers. And when He comes, then, oh THEN what a riot of flowers there will be!
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