Don't Stay Too Long in Your Hole

The winter is hard on everyone...whether it's the cold, dark days we awake to, or the cold, dark days in our spirits, winter is a challenge.  The little Oregon juncos have arrived at my feeder.  They look like wee executioners, with their little black hoods.  This little guy arrived and was eager to find some lunch. The feeders were empty (oh, the shame!) and all of the seed on the ground had been snatched up.  So, what was our wee bird's idea?  Keep digging until you find seed under the snow!

Yes, that's a solution, but the deeper he went, the less he could keep track of predators, such as our small hawk that loves to alight on the tree that holds the feeders.  This little guy was more interested in getting at the seed than being safe.  So, he kept going deeper...

And vanished.  I laughed because he normally would bob up and down, trying to simultaneously look for seed and the hawk.  But once he went too deep, he couldn't see.  

I thought, how so like our lives.  We look for those things that we need and also want, and keep getting deeper and deeper in, looking for more.  The original reason may be a good one, but the deeper in we get, the less we see of our bigger world and our vision is narrowed down to just our pursuits.  In Jesus' day, things weren't any different: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?  And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them." (Matthew 6:23-32)

If we keep pursuing the very things that our Father already knows we need, soon we are in so deep, we lose track of the larger horizon of His love.  And equally as sad, we lose sight of the dangers--how what was once a reasonable need turns into an obsession, stealing away our joy and marring our walk with Him.  We are also more vulnerable to attack--our inability to see the Lord's provision leads us to try to take even more control of our lives and do it ourselves.  The more we do ourselves, away from the Father's plan, the deeper in we go.  Instead of broad expansive joy, we see the walls of our hole, imprisoned and unhappy.  

Solution?  Jesus states it simply, as all profound things are:  "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."  (Matthew 6:33).  Wow!  That doesn't sound like digging a hole, but building a relationship with the One Who loves us so.  That doesn't sound like looking down at our need, but looking up to His provision.  That doesn't sound like work, but sounds like a celebration--we are His children, and He knows what is best for us.  He knows where the seed is, where the hawk is, and knows that too long in a hole is a lonely, closed-in existence.  Look up.  He is waiting with open arms.

Prayer:  Father:  I am in a hole of my own digging.  I started out fine--I could see out beyond it, but now I am confined in it.  Please, be the lifter of my head and give me strength to fly out.  Your love never ceases to wait.  In Your Precious Son's Name, amen.

Be Ever Green

"Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."  Nehemiah 8:10

The New Year has arrived with cold winds.  When the sun makes a rare appearance, the ice crystals glint like diamonds in the snow.  The land's harsh edges are softened.  The snow blows about like powdered sugar, with drifts forming and reforming as the winds change direction.  Amidst the cold, stand my three evergreens:  my blue spruce (small but mighty) and two Austrian pines.  Everything else is dead, or at least appears to be so.  The grasses are buried under the snow and the sunflowers are skeletal remains along our road.  If you didn't know better, you'd think we live in a wasteland.

It is desolate right now.  The landscape is barren and rather foreboding.  But my evergreens remind me of the beauty of the land to come in the spring.  The green will return.  The Lord has designed the planet to operate like clockwork, so I can trust the return of the spring. 

The landscape of the nation is rather desolate now.  It is winter in America.  The cold winds blow.  What is the Evergreen of our hope?  It is God.  Listen to the words of Habakkuk, who was told that punishment was coming to his beloved Judah:  

    
¹⁶ I heard and my heart pounded,
    my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones,
    and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
    to come on the nation invading us.
¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.
 ¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.

The joy of the Lord is our strength, our evergreen tree of hope in the desolate winter landscape of these times.  He gives us strength so we can stand in the snow, green and hopeful because of His faithfulness.  We can remind each other of His presence, so we can "go on to the heights."  We don't ignore the landscape, but we can stand in it with confidence.  The days are hard, the days are dark, but we serve a mighty God!

One last thought:  under the snow, the seeds sleep.  The many bulbs that my son and I planted in the fall are still there, deeply buried in the frozen earth.  When we had a few days of a rather warm sun a few weeks ago, one little plant dared to poke up through the forbidding snow and seek the sun.   If we don't find ourselves as evergreens--yet--dare to lift up your head, look to His warmth, and seek the Son.  Your efforts, even if you take them to be small, will encourage others.  Whether tall or small, we are to live in this current landscape like we mean business--our Father's business.   

Prayer:  Lord, the days are dark, just like the depths of winter.  Help me to be ever green, resting in You and trusting You to sustain me, so I can be truly joyful.  Not with a joy born of ignorance, but a joy born of confidence in Who You are:  the One Who loves us.  In Your Son's most precious name, amen.

Fresh Falling Snow

“…wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” 

Psalm 51:7

     Fresh snow--beautiful, soft, white--the earth pulls it up like a downy blanket under its chin.  It covers rocks, stones, jagged edges, imperfections in the landscape, and evens it out to where the terrain stretches out in a silken sweep, like the sleeve of a lovely dress.  It quiets the land.  As snow falls, all noise is enveloped, and for a moment, I marvel at the all-pervading sense of peace.  Somehow, in the midst of snowfall, it does seem that peace on earth and good will to men has fallen from the heavens as well.

     This is snow--at first.  Then, over time, it changes:  it becomes sharp, crusty, icy, not at all pleasant.  Mud and dirt discolor it, and leaves stick to it.  It holds on to the soil like a cat’s dirty paws, and loses all softness.  Rocks reappear out of it, and it hides in the cracks and crevices of the terrain, lingering in the shadows, and disappearing under a warming sun, so now the hillsides are a jumble of snow and soil, white and brown.

     What made the change from pristine white softness to dirty gray iciness?  Temperature:  pure and simple.  As the sun warms the snow, it melts, and yet the winter warmth doesn’t allow it to escape quickly into the atmosphere.  The temperature soon drops in the shortness of the day, and the melted snow turns to ice.  Now the surface, once powdery, is hard and uninviting to walk across.  It’s quite scary navigating across an icy driveway or walkway, without my feet sinking securely into the snow--the icy snow now will not yield, and although it still maintains a white gleam in the afternoon sun, it is not inviting to explore.

     How so like the Christian walk.  The first fallen snow of joy in the Lord, the saving touch of His hand, the repentant soul home at last:  all soft, white, and full of quiet promise.  The terrain of the past is gently and utterly covered:  no more can sinful stones and rocks be seen, and the outstretched sweep of forgiveness makes the land look young and even. 

     But, that changes over time:  the temperature of a fallen world with its warm sun that melts our resolve and slowly encrusts our hearts with an icy coat.  The mud and dirt of sin infiltrates the whiteness, and leaves sharp stones and particles of hurt and guilt on what was once white and pure in His sight.  What was once a pleasurable walk where our feet securely allowed us to walk in Him is now is treacherous, with us slipping and falling onto a hard unyielding surface of regret, hurting our hearts and shattering our hopes.

     What restores the loveliness of the hillsides?  What brings back the even softness, with the rocks and stones receding from view?  What covers the dirt again with beautiful white, and quiets again the land with peace?  Fresh snow! Fresh clean snow once again falling from Heaven.  The earth taints what is good--Heaven restores it.

     In my mountain home, there is never just one snowfall.  In my heavenly home--my heart--there is never just a one time forgiveness of sin.  David in his Psalm knew a cleansed soul has a special kind of purity--snow-like, freshly fallen from Heaven, knowing that the sun will come, but equally confident in what falls from His healing hand.

My life has felt Your cleansing touch--it has equally felt the dirt  of sin.  Help me, precious Lord, not to focus on the receding snow-- the melting and tainting of my spirit--but help me to ask again and again for fresh sweet snow, given from Heaven to a heart that sincerely desires it. Then may I wander over the terrain of Your will for my life, firm as I walk, confident as I hold the nail-scarred hand of my Savior.  In Your peace-bringing Name, amen.

A Mighty Wind

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. 

You hear its sound,
but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

 John 3:8

      The wind is mighty where I live.  My neighbor has a weather station attached to his roof and loves to monitor what goes on around here.  Quite a bit, apparently—the highest clocked winds thus far have been 57 miles per hour.  We have winds that roar up here—I thought how poetical to say “roar” until I lived up here and yes, they roar. 

     In the morning, it is quiet and yet I know what I heard the night before, in the darkness.  We have learned to situate our lawn chairs so they won’t blow away.  We have two cinder blocks sitting on our barbeque, and a “wall” of them around it, to prevent it from being thrown over—which it has happened many times.  The only thing that saved my neighbors from getting a "free" barbeque was the gas line that tethers it to the house.  I have tried to retrieve lawn chairs and rocking chairs in the middle of a windstorm, and I felt rather powerless against such a force.  The wind blows, pure and simple, and nothing will get in its way.

     The clouds in the mountains also demonstrate the mightiness of the winds in the upper atmosphere.  The clouds move very quickly up there and seem to writhe and twist like gigantic snakes in the sky as the winds move them.  Nothing in the sky is static—the winds change the form of the clouds, their location and their marching pace as the day progresses.  At night this demonstration is veiled, but I can hear the winds in their performance.

      It is no surprise that Jesus compares the Holy Spirit to wind.  Winds can be gentle breezes:  His quiet voice whispering to our hearts.  Or He can be a mighty rushing wind:  His conviction of sin calling to our hearts and His urgent call, inviting us to salvation. 

     The Spirit is mighty:  He moves hearts and reshapes them in the image of the Son.  He will not allow us to remain static.  He desires us to move across the sky of God’s kingdom and make a difference in our world. 

     Nothing will get in the Spirit’s way.  A person cannot stand down a hurricane, and the Spirit will not be quenched in the world, despite all the evil the world can muster. 

     Even when we cannot “see” the Spirit, we can still see evidence He is still active in the world.  Even if it’s not windy in the mountains, the clouds are proclaiming the wind up high—so too, is the work of the Spirit.  His presence means hope in the world—hope that lives can be changed, hearts can be healed, and that evil will be overcome.  Isaiah reminds us that God will “provide for those who grieve in Zion--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor.” (61:13)

     Come, Holy Spirit…we need You more than ever.

Prayer

We pray for those who grieve.  We pray for those who suffer loss and mourn with those whose hearts are shattered.  Come, Spirit, whisper to our hearts in our despair and draw us to the One Who is Hope: Jesus Christ.  In the Name of the Father Who also lost a Son, amen.

Under the Snow, There Lies Hope

“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits--

Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

Who redeems you from the put and crowns you

with love and compassion,

Who satisfies your desires with good things

so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s”

Psalm 103:2-5

The snow fell and whitened the road that I was driving down.  It looked like large wisps of wool and silenced the hills.  Sitting on top of a fence post was a hawk.  The hawk wasn’t moving; he just sat there, wings folded, surveying the same white and silenced world I was looking at. 

I thought about what might be going through his mind:  how does his world now compare to the spring, where freshly sprung green grass dances on the hillsides with those surprising spots of color as the wildflowers make their appearance?  Or to the summer: where the wildflowers have withered away and the wild grasses now lie in the relentless sun and grow tawny brown?  Or to the fall, where the earth is spent and awaits the approaching cold and snow?

And yet, he still sat there, his world now white, silent and so very different from the hillsides of a few months back.  I started thinking:  he must know that somehow, someway, those hillsides will return.  They have every season he has been here.  He was not just surveying his world as it was; he saw it as it will become.  Therein lies his strength:  he knows change is coming--he can’t say when--but he knows that the world will awake from its snowy slumber.

Our poet and king, David, knew that too, and celebrated it in Psalm 103.  He knew the power of contemplating the green hillsides of the past with his Lord, and how his soul has been blessed, healed and loved by Him.  His contemplation of God’s provision back then gives him to the strength to face now.  Youth was bestowed upon him not by turning back the clock, but by an infusion of hope into his spirit, that was bending under the load of "now."

Memory is powerful:  we can close our eyes, and see back to where the Lord was so evident in our lives.  Even if snow covers the ground, or will in the future, by seeing what the Lord has graciously provided in the past, our strength is renewed.  We can see the green hillsides under the snow.

Prayer

The hills are covered in snow, Lord, or I see clouds looming on the horizon that are bringing cold, biting winds.  I need renewal of my spirit:  joy in my heart, peace in my mind.  Help me to revisit those green hillsides of Your power in my life, and walk among the dancing grasses.  The snow is cold and I am weak; but I will be renewed by Your presence.  Change will come--I can’t say when--but it will come.  It has before.   Spring always follows winter.  In Jesus’ mighty Name, amen.