We’d like to be humble…but what if no one notices?
-John Ortberg
Tag: gardening
A Different Kind of Savings Plan
My little flock, don’t be afraid. God is your Father, and your Father’s great joy is to give you His kingdom.
That means you can sell your possessions and give generously to the poor. You can have a different kind of savings plan: one that never depreciates, one that never defaults, one that can’t be plundered by crooks or destroyed by natural calamities. Your treasure will be stored in the heavens, and since your treasure is there, your heart will be lodged there as well.
(Luke 12:32-34 The Voice)
God’s version of prosperity may be bigger and more freeing than you think.
And very different.
Share this:
Coming in the Opposite Spirit
I’m wrestling with an attitude problem. No, it’s not the attitude of a surly teenager at the breakfast table, or a disgruntled boss who seems impossible to please, or even the doom and gloomer media riding their own tidal wave of predicted disaster into my house. It’s my own surly attitude that wants to roll up in a ball under the duvet, shun expectations, and type nasty you-think-that’s-bad responses on my cell phone.
Ongoing health problems and extreme cold have kept me housebound for most of the past two months. I realize I need to do something to break the pattern of negativity and low expectations that I have been allowing to creep in like the cold of another frozen grey day.
I’ve heard people use the expression “coming in the opposite spirit” to describe an attitude that does not succumb to the prevailing spiritual atmosphere. This is an attitude that chooses to focus on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable and responds to evil with good.
An example of this is found in 1 Peter 3:9:
Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.
On a day when I woke up sensing an atmosphere of darkness, coldness of heart, and dismal forebodings, I choose to come in the opposite spirit. I’m going to do this metaphorically here.
The opposite season of year from today is mid-July. I went back to a file of photos labeled July, and chose some of them to post. Then I found some music from a delightful British Gardening show that carries good memories for me. This is the atmosphere I am creating on my blog today. This afternoon I think I shall peruse some online seed catalogues and make plans for the future.
Lord, to my heart bring back the springtime.
Share this:
You Wear Sunshine
Everything I am will praise and bless the Lord!
Oh Lord, my God, your greatness takes my breath away,
Overwhelming me by your majesty, beauty, and splendor!
You wrap yourself with a shimmering glistening light.
You wear sunshine like a garment of glory.
(Psalm 104:1,2 The Passion Translation)
Share this:
Tuned to His Glory
Everyone everywhere, lift up your joyful shout to God!
Sing your songs tuned to His glory!
Tell the world how wonderful he is
For he’s the awe-inspiring God,
Great and glorious in power!
We’ve never seen anything like him!
Mighty in miracles,
you cause your enemies to tremble.
No wonder they all surrender and bow before you!
All the earth will bow down to worship;
All the earth will sing your glories forever!
(Psalm 66 The Passion Translation)
Share this:
The Formerly Splendid
Never give your hearts to this world or to any of the things in it. A man cannot love the Father and love the world at the same time. For the whole world-system, based as it is on men’s primitive desires, their greedy ambitions and the glamour of all that they think splendid, is not derived from the Father at all, but from the world itself. The world and all its passionate desires will one day disappear. But the man who is following God’s will is part of the permanent and cannot die. (1 John 2:15-17)
Share this:
A Gift of Chard
“The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.”
– Henri Nouwen
Share this:
Instead
My rose bush produced one measly flower this year, yet in the forest, untended and uncoddled, the wild roses bloom freely.
Sometimes I fret and rush about trying to make things grow when and where I decide they ought to, when really I’m not in charge at all. I can’t force relationships to bloom when and where and how I want them too either.
The roses in the woods remind me that Jesus said, “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to this span of life?”
“Instead, seek his kingdom and all these things will be added to you.”
Share this:
Grace and Glory
To live by grace means to know that there is light and there is shadow in our lives. There is glory and there is shame.
But grace draws us into the light. It coaxes us out of hiding. It wakens our dormant hopes.
Grace exchanges our shame for glory.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
The Lord will give grace and glory;
No good thing will He withhold
From those who walk uprightly.
(Psalm 84:11)
Share this:
Restore, Confirm, Strengthen and Establish
The year I started writing this blog our valley was hit by an explosive wind storm. Many homes were damaged and thousands of trees fell. (I wrote about it here.) I grieved for my beautiful shade tree, one of the victims. We carted the big old May tree away in pieces to a place where a wood chipper re-purposed it as mulch. I hated the gap left, but the back garden has improved with the increased sunlight. The roots were too hard to remove, so I left two shoots to grow and kept hacking away at the others that sprang up. Yesterday I was doing a spring clean up in the yard when I saw the first blooms on the two shoots that have become young trees. Today most of the rest of them opened.
In all the years the big tree stood there it never blossomed before May 1. At this altitude and latitude it was often closer to June 1 than May 1 when the sweet-smelling flowers appeared. Because the root system established by the old tree was so deep and wide these two new trees springing up from it are growing faster than I could have imagined. They are filling in the gap and are taller than the house now. Hundreds of flowers cover them.
As I watched them sway in the golden sun of evening the word that came to mind was “restore.”
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
(1 Peter 5:6-10 ESV)
The Lord is faithful. He himself has restored. Now I have two May trees – and they are blooming sooner than expected. The first signs of promise of the restoration of many things. I wait and watch with anticipation.
Charis: Subject to Change 