For many years I could not say that. The best I could do was say, “I’ll be happy when…
when this course is over,
when I have a driver’s license,
when I am married,
when this baby is born,
when tax season is over,
when the swelling goes down,
when I get my Dad settled in his new home,
when the bills are paid,
when the house is clean and organized,
when my kids are doing well,
when their bills are paid…”
There was always a reason to postpone enjoying the moment, something that still needed improvement, some potential disappointment that needed guarding against.
I used to think that when I managed to finish everything on the job list I could reward myself with feeling a little joy.
I rarely finished the to-do list -and never finished the worry list. That list I took to bed with me.
Jesus said his burden was light.
Mine wasn’t.
I lumbered from burn-out to burn-out and laboured under thick layers of guilt.
In a dream, the Lord showed me a heavy suitcase. It was full of things that needed prayer. He said sometimes I needed to set it down. It would wear me out if I carried it all the time. Sometimes I needed to leave it with him, walk away and enjoy the scenery.
In a way, that is why I took up photography and painting. They make me pay attention and become more aware of beauty. The evening light does not wait until the paperwork is done and the hedge is clipped and all the hungry people in the world are fed and all the sick are healed.
Sometimes on this journey we need to leave the heavy stuff and the “whys” in his care and sit by the stream in the cool of the evening and allow our souls to be restored. Right here, mid-crisis, in the hidden grottos of the valley, with all of the threats and fears and opposition looking on like jealous, ravenous beasts, God prepares a place of rest and safety and refreshing for us.
I am learning (slowly) to set the suitcase down, step into the joyful freshness of God’s presence and allow him to restore my soul -in that infinitely tiny and infinitely spacious moment called “now.” That’s where the battle is won.
Fushias look like joyful dancers to me as they spin and sway in the summer breeze.
The culture I grew up in forbid dancing as a potentially lustful activity. I had to bring a note to be excused when our all-girl gym class learned Hokey Pokey or Oh Johnny Oh. Now I watch my grandchildren move so naturally to the music that inspires them and I miss the years I spent with my feet nailed to the floor. I definitely do not have a dancer’s body, and just because my feet stop dancing doesn’t mean other parts don’t keep swaying. I feel rather foolish, but I long to dance with the freedom of a child.
Someday.
Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
and the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy;
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance,
and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness,
A couple of days ago an insightful young man asked me, “Why do you think God chose to reveal himself as a father? Could it be that a perfect father is something we are all missing? Do you think that God the Father sent more than the Son? Maybe it was also about sending the relationship.”
Adam, the first father of all of us sinned. What was the nature of his sin? I wonder if it was the failure to be the father/caregiver God intended him to be.
I think Adam demonstrated three failures as a husband and father that set patterns which cause men to struggle with their identity to this day: passivity, shirking responsibility and a lack of courage.
When the serpent tempted Eve (with the oldest lie in the book, “Did God really say…?”) Adam was with her. (Gen 3:6) He had the opportunity to say, “Step away from the snake, Honey,” but he did nothing. He could have loaned her his strength to resist, but he became passive. He chose to disengage.
When God asked Adam what he had done he said, “That woman…that woman YOU gave me made me do it.” (Gen. 3:12) He was saying, “Hey, I’m just the victim here. I’m a victim of another human and a victim of God.” He could have taken responsibility, but he chose to shift the blame.
Adam and Eve chose to hide from God. Who told them they were naked? Obviously the one who has been capitalizing on shame ever since. Again Adam and Eve chose to listen to that voice and the result was living in shame and fear. Adam’s legacy is the tendency to hide in shame and live in fear.
When fear becomes the motivating force in our lives we either hide or become bullies. When we are shame-based we are easily offended. Shame on a larger scale leads to a hopeless society with a desire to escape responsibility or accountability. Bullying on a national scale leads to exploitation and war. In the hands of the wicked the manipulation of the masses through shame and fear leads to every form of depravity we’ve ever seen –and passivity and the shirking of responsibility keep it entrenched.
God chose to use the symbolism of fatherhood to convey the nature of the relationship he desires with us. I don’t think he chose it because the character traits of a good father are exclusive to one gender. (Several passages also speak of the “feminine” characteristics of God like nursing, nurturing, birthing, and comforting ) I wonder if he chose the image of father because fundamentally we all suffer the consequences of father Adam’s inadequacies. Most –no, I think all– of the patriarchs failed as fathers in some way. We see patterns of passivity, disengagement, shirking responsibility and cowardice passed down from generation to generation all throughout the Bible.
A person cannot give what they have not received.
But why would God want to associate himself with these guys who missed the ideal in so many ways? Perhaps it is because he also wants to redeem the whole concept of father. Perhaps if we look at what Jesus accomplished in relationship with the Father we can have a better idea of what a father is meant to be.
Adam was passive and silent; Jesus engaged by speaking truth in love. He never denied the reality of the consequence of sin, but always acted with compassion, and provided a way out.
Adam shirked responsibility; Jesus took responsibility for our sin. He was the ultimate example of “The buck stops here.”
Adam hid in shame and fear; Jesus courageously walked into shame and submitted to the humiliation of a mock trial and a cross of shame. Jesus agonized and sweat drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane, but he courageously delivered himself to bear the consequence of our sin when he willingly went to the cross. Do not mistake his silence before his accusers as passivity. Never did he disengage. His actions were deliberate. He was still in total co-operation with the authority of the Father when he laid his life down.
Jesus demonstrated how to use authority both when he tipped over the tables of the money changers and when he stripped down to his underwear to wash his friend’s stinky feet. He faithfully responded to God the Father’s favourite cause: concern for the widow, the fatherless, and the refugee. He loved them, healed them, blessed them, fed them, and confided in them. (James 1:27 calls this “Pure and undefiled religion.” It’s not the legalistic hypocritical attempts to appease an angry God type of religion, but the Bible does talk about religion here in a positive sense, so I personally think we need to use that term carefully.)
Jesus said that when we look at him we can know what God the Father is like. In him we find everything our lonely, unloved, orphaned, refugee souls crave. The perfect father. Someone who will fight to the death for us. Someone who will fully engage with us and speak truth into our lives. Someone who is willing to be both a warrior and a servant. Someone who embodies Love.
I believe God wants to restore fathers to their children and children to their fathers and he has shown us what this looks like. Trusting and co-operating with the type of leadership Jesus showed is not a struggle with submission to a potentially abusive patriarch. It’s a joy and relief. Women, children, and the disenfranchised long for such leadership.
… looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)
A lot of the thoughts in this blog were gleaned from an excellent sermon I heard this week. You know the speaker is listening to the Holy Spirit when you forget he is your son and hear only the message. God is good.
A kind person told me that feeling an emotion is like feeling thirsty. There is no shame in feeling thirsty. You might consider if anything unusual caused your thirst, or if you need to drop everything and get a drink, or if you can wait until the next convenient time to deal with it. Seldom do people say, “I’m so sorry. I really shouldn’t feel thirsty. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” Thirst is.
We might consider the cause of an unexpected emotion, but we have the choice to deal with it right away or wait until the next convenient time –but we can’t ignore feelings forever. There is no need to say,”I’m so sorry. I really shouldn’t feel this way. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” Feelings are.
Today I feel emotionally thirsty. I’ve been in a time of giving (freely and with joy because I absolutely love the people who needed my help) but today I am feeling tired and a bit, well, prunish. There are scattered piles of requests for attention all over my house. The urgent has been attended to, but I’m not putting this off anymore, so dust, emails, laundry, lesson plans, and call back messages, if you will excuse me, I’m going to go soak in the love of Jesus now.
After a downpour in the Pass yesterday, the air was still and smelled so sweetly of pine and new aspen sap. After the storm the lake glistened with hope.
I was sitting at my computer, performing some boring task like deleting old emails, when I heard this word in my head: CAMBIUM LAYER.
Well, that was weird. I ignored it.
A little later I heard it again. CAMBIUM LAYER. It was quite clear. I hadn’t run into that word since biology class nmpfm years ago.
Sometimes God talks to me (and no the TV doesn’t talk to me and I don’t wear a foil hat.) I’ve only recently stopped apologizing for it. If that upsets you, just move along. This is not the post you are looking for.
I think He talks to a lot of people, but when we ignore the message, or dismiss His still small voice as stress or too much pizza, He stops talking to us that way and moves on to plan B. This time I knew it wasn’t pizza talking. I’m allergic to pizza –both crust and cheese. Haven’t eaten it in years.
But like Peter, the devil has lied to me, and although I’m getting better at telling the voices, dreams, and loud thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere apart, nevertheless it is wise to judge this offering with the spiritual discernment God has given you and check to see if it lines up with scripture.
I answered this word with my usual deeply reverential response.
“What???”
I was surprised to read a footnote in my study Bible. In 1 Corinthians 13 (yes, the love chapter) a Greek word used in the verse about seeing “through a glass darkly “ is ainigma (enigma). My margin notes said, “As in a riddle”. J.B, Phillips translates it: At present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror.
I consulted a Koine Greek expert and he said the word implies a puzzle that needs to be pursued and is worthy of study. So I pursued, puzzled and studied “cambium layer.”
The cambium layer is the new growth layer of a tree. It carries the sap to the leaves, flowers and fruit. The cambium layer, when its season is done, forms another ring which is added to the wood of the trunk and branches.
A few days later I had an urge to take my camera to my friend’s orchard. Their orchard is quite unique; this friend’s specialty is growing as many varieties of apples as space and our climate will permit. He preserves old varieties of apples as well as experimenting with new hybrids. “Jake” has one tree with six varieties of apples growing on the same tree. He showed me how he grafts them in. All his trees are grafted onto old hardy roots that have proven ability to withstand Canadian winters.
“When I graft in a new branch I cut down to the cambium layer in the trunk or in a thick branch.” He said.
“Cambium layer, you say?” He had my attention.
“Yes. The new branch must form a connection to the growth layer or it won’t receive any sap and will starve.”
I leaned in for a better look. Some grafted branches looked like sprained ankles, strangely swollen, protruding at odd angles and supported by what looked like bandages and even crutch-like sticks which held up them up.
“It’s tricky,” he said. “If you put it in too deeply, into the old wood, the graft will fail to take. If it’s not deep enough the bark won’t form enough scar tissue around it to hold it in.”
Grafts
“Tell me more about the cambium layer,” I said.
“You can make quite a few cuts into the cambium layer. Even a huge long gash will heal, but you can’t restrict it horizontally all the way around the trunk. If you bind wire around it, for example, the tree will die.”
He fingers rested on the trunk almost affectionately.
“That’s also the part of the tree bugs want to get into. The bark is what protects the growth layer from attack. It needs to present a unified front.”
Grafted In
“It’s interesting,” he added, “that in tough years, or really dry years, the rings left in the tree are thinner, but a number of dense rings will make the tree stronger. You can’t always tell by looking at the size how much fruit a tree will produce. Some of these little ones can give you a ton of apples. And of course we need to be out there every year to prune back to just the essential branches to direct the tree’s energy into making fruit.”
I went away praying, “So, Lord, what are you showing me?”
This is what I feel I learned:
An apple tree can be a picture of the Church. The big C Church –the real Church made up of all followers of Jesus Christ — not just the buildings where folks plop their weary bones on a pew after the cows are milked on Sunday morning (the historical reason behind why most churches meet at the time they do.)
I have observed areas of active growth in the Church, where people are encountering God in all his goodness, being filled with the knowledge they are loved, and having an increasing desire to glorify him and to reach out to the needy with the good news. It’s a place where new believers are drawn to Christ, where there is a hunger and thirst to know him more deeply and a desire to go beyond the experience of parent’s and grandparent’s comfortable pews, and where lovers of Jesus are being empowered to be a positive influence that brings justice and salvation and healing to the suffering. These are places where lives are changing and the fruit of the spirit is beginning to fill out.
There is also a tendency for a lot of these groups, who are experiencing bounding spiritual growth, to become objects of harsh criticism and to feel restricted by the limits of “old wine skins”. They often end up disassociating themselves from former movements.
Every week new denominations start up with creative names reflecting the facet of the God-experience which best expresses their current focus. (In my opinion even “non-denominational” churches and home churches are mini-denominations. Within two or three generations, open-armed fellowships, meant to embrace like-minded people, have a tendency to morph into closed institutions whose function is to exclude those who have not had the same experience, or do not agree on every point.) They miss the stability that can only come about through years of weathering storms and drought and winter wind. Their roots are shallow and they quickly become victims of the climate.
If the growth layer in a tree is restricted the tree will die. If the old established “organized” tree attempts to restrict the growth of a movement to the parameters of its own previous experience, it will kill the tree. Tradition and history remind us to remember the goodness of God’s faithfulness, to encourage faith in what the Lord will do and not just in what he has done. By establishing sound doctrine based on the Word of God year after year, and pruning back unproductive offshoots, our forefathers and foremothers have maintained the shape and integrity of the church. I’m not saying we should overlook unscriptural teaching; essential doctrine is essential. Yes, sometimes it has run seriously wild, but God sends reformers along every once in a while to dig around the roots, lop off dead branches, kill the insects, and dump a load of fertilizer on it, to keep it in check.
The point of the solid structure of the tree is to support new growth that will produce fruit. Power-hungry jealousy and competitiveness is like a wire tied around the trunk that chokes off life. It is not the job of the cambium layer to support the woody layers. Young believers cannot be grafted into old wood with which they can make no connection. If communication fails, they will not receive adequate nurturing; they will shrivel up and fall away.
I wonder if the bark might represent the ones who are called to intercede, or the forerunners – the cutting edge spiritual warriors who bear the scars, the ones who face threats and are willing to lay down their lives to protect both the old stable wood, the new growth layer, and to gather around new grafts to support them securely. Without them, the whole tree is vulnerable to attack and can be destroyed by one annoying, invading insect at a time.
The roots of my friend’s trees are hardy. We are rooted and grounded in the love of Christ and build on a foundation of the apostles and prophets.
In Ephesians 2 we read: 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
By faith we sink our roots deep into the love of Christ and Holy Spirit flows up producing fruit that is obvious to the world –love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness , faithfulness, gentleness and self-control .
A tree with many varieties of branches grafted in will not produce fruit which all looks and tastes totally alike. Cultural differences may make this tree church look odd, lacking in homogeneity. Accepting new branches may involve an uncomfortable period of wounding to make room –but it is a wonderful thing, this Church universal.
Without the new growth layer and connections to where the Holy Spirit is flowing now, the old woody layer is a merely a dying monument to the past. Without clinging to the stability gained through perseverance and enduring hope grown throughout a 2000 year old history of good seasons and tough seasons, the strength and stability secured through adversity and persecution is not available to the new layer; it flips and flops all over the place, tossed about by every wave of doctrine. With both it is strong, and continues to grow stronger producing enough fruit to feed a hungry world.
Honour your father and mother. Do not quench the Spirit. Both.
We need each other. Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples -that you have love for one another.”
Charis: Subject to Change 