That winter splinterland

Twigs and even huge chunks of limbs heavily littered our local orchards in recent weeks. Producing apples, cherries, pears and peaches (and other fruit crops) isn’t all about blooms and harvest. It’s also about maintenance, which includes what may appear to be pruning so heavy that someone like me (unschooled in orchard management) wonders if the pruned tree will even live. This also happens in the winter, before the sap runs. The pruners put in cold, hard days.

The sight reminded me of scriptural passages about pruning and spiritual growth. One is James 1:2-4 (NIV): “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

A key word in that verse is “develops.” Spiritual maturity doesn’t drop into our lives overnight. We’re like orchards, needing pruning as we’re shaped into God’s optimum “fruit-producers.” The “perseverance” mentioned here isn’t the “grit-your-teeth-and-get-through-it” type of living, but a growing reliance on God’s faithfulness in life’s tough spots.

This process is called “spiritual formation,” for through spiritual pruning, Christ is formed in us. One key idea expressed in Klaus Issler’s book, Living into the Life of Jesus (IVP, 2012), is that this involves progressive steps. We’re not zapped with spiritual maturity overnight. As Issler describes the progression:

1. We begin by not seeing ourselves as having a spiritual problem

2. We become aware of our spiritual “gap” and are mulling over whether it’s really worth changing.

3. We’re willing to change, but wonder how. This idea of “depending on the Spirit” comes into play. We don’t know how to change, but He will guide us.

4. We commit to change. We may have setbacks, but we’re committed to keep going--with God’s help.

5. We see changes in our character.

6. We settle into a lifestyle with those changes. It’s easier to do what’s right.

One personal example was Issler’s problem with mild “road rage.” That included negative habits and language to express anger when things didn’t go as he wanted on the freeways of Los Angeles. (Personal note: I am a survivor of Los Angeles traffic, probably thanks to guardian angels galore!) After confessing that his problem of contempt for other drivers was a spiritual issue, he identified scriptures that addressed his problem. He then went into a season of letting God’s Spirit prompt him to respond peacefully every time a highway incident came up. Some months later, he realized a traffic situation no longer roused his anger.

Thankfully, spring follows winter. The blossoms come, and we’re reminded that the God who “prunes” us, sometimes severely, wants only His glorious best for us.

Divine fingerprints



One of last year's buttercup spots; the one
mentioned in this blog far surpassed this.

 Sometimes the love of God is very quiet, sent via sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. I think about that every spring as we watch for the first buttercup blooms. My late mother-in-law grew up in a hilly rural area where the tiny yellow blooms proliferate. She led a type of family competition to see who could find the first buttercup of spring. As she aged and was moved into town, we made sure the first buttercups were delivered to her. Even as dementia set in, the tiny blooms brought a twinkle to her eyes. But one sunny, early spring day, just a year and a half before her death, her son (my husband) wheeled her out to the car and settled her in for drive to the orchard hills of her childhood roots. Rounding one corner, they came upon a whole carpet of yellow blooms, like a hint of Heaven’s streets of gold.

“It was like a gift from God,” my husband recalled. “I had never seen such a display.”

I thought of that incident in reading Klaus Issler’s book, Living into the Life of Jesus (IVP, 2012, p. 102). In writing about how we respond to God, he encouraged being more attentive to “God’s love initiatives” toward us. These might include “sunshine that warms me in a special moment, the cheerful sound of birds singing in the morning when I need that encouragement, a beautiful sunset that overwhelms me, a specific word from a friend that goes deep and a hug from a friend that puts flesh on love.”

He said it’s like these lines from “Aurora Leigh” by Elizabeth Browning (1806-1861):
Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.

Besides what’s taken in through our senses, God can speak through circumstances and relationships. Issler sensed God’s love initiatives, for example, in a friend who moved him from being a hand-shaker to a hugger. Another was in spending time with his toddler granddaughter.

Jesus often challenged His listeners, “He who has ears, let him hear.” It’s not just our ears that teach. All the senses, even that “extra sense,” can lead us to realize, “God passed by here.” It can even happen on a spring-warmed patch of soil, pushing out a golden carpet with a whispered, “I did this to bring you My pleasure.”

Crockpot spirituality

When commitments cram a day, I’m grateful for a kitchen appliance called the “crock-pot.” It’s the modern version of the kettle that sat over low embers all day. I cut some meat into fist-size or smaller pieces, then add chopped vegetables, a cup of water and a hearty shake of various spices. Lid on, dial turned to “low,” and eight to ten hours later the house is filled with pleasant, mouth-watering aromas.

The Christian life, I think, is much like that. When the apostle Peter summarized the development of Christian virtue (2 Peter 1:3-11), he used this phrase: “add to.” Like the ingredients mingling their flavors in my crock-pot, the components of godly character enhance one another. Bible teacher George McDonald, commenting on this passage, noted that a life of discipline is a common thread in spiritual growth: “There must be discipline in prayer…Bible study…the use of time…in curbing bodily appetites…in sacrificial living.” The end of all this is “that Christ will have the best of our lives.”

Peter’s “recipe” for godly living begins, of course, with the foundation of faith—for without faith in the living God, trying to achieve these graces on our own is destined for defeat. After faith come these (synonyms in parenthesis from the Amplified Bible):

*Virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy)—the desire to live wholly before a holy God.

*Knowledge (intelligence)—not satisfied with knowing the bare basics of the faith, but earnestly, like a dog gnawing on a bone, desiring to know more and more about God through His Word.

*Temperance (self-control)—willing to give up things we realize enslave us. (Think: what possession or activity absorbs your time and energy, even though it might be interfering with your growth in Christ?)

*Patience (steadfastness, endurance)—having a long fuse when provoked, giving up “rights” when the purposes of God are better served by deference.

*Godliness (piety)—known for conduct that truly reflects God.

*Brotherly kindness (affection)—truly caring about people in the full spectrum of their needs: physical, emotional, spiritual.

*Charity (Christian love)—Not the “valentine” type love, but the deep, God-sourced love that causes us to invest our time, treasures, and lives for others. It’s what the old apostle John characterized: “This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for ours sins” (1 John 4:10).

Peter adds that failure to develop these seven graces will result in barrenness, unfruitfulness, shortsightedness, blindness, and forgetfulness. To bring it back to the crock-pot analogy, it’s like never plugging the pot in. After time, the meat and veggies will rot and cause quite a stench.

I’d rather be a vessel holding good things. Appropriately, all those ingredients require heat (fiery times—see 1 Peter 4:12-13) to become a finished product. We’re to be crock-pots, not refrigerators!

Passing the health quiz

“Live longer and better,” promised the title of a recent article in my newspaper. I’m already crusading in our home against sugar and white flour (as much as possible!). Wondering what more I could do, I read on and discovered:

To improve memory, I should go on walks, which are better for mental alertness than even crossword puzzles and ginkgo biloba supplements. (Where did I put my walking shoes?)

To decrease risks for diabetes and heart disease, I need to cut back on extended television watching. I’m not much for television, but as someone whose livelihood involves another sedentary device (computer), I took note. Better than excessive screen time: take a walk.

A middle-age history of bad habits (smoking, avoiding exercise, other unhealthy behaviors) doesn’t doom you. The article said even walking a few times a week can help such people stay healthier when they reach old age, than those who didn’t.

Opening the blinds helps you feel younger. I’m okay here. I keep our home bright during the day. I love looking out at the sky and plant life, and the sunlight helps keep SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) away. Even more sunlight: take a walk.

Physical activity and social connections lengthen life span. The experts say 5.4 years more. Another reason to take a walk!

Not all of the suggestion involved physical activity (take a walk!). Another was:

Volunteering improves your health, because it helps you find a higher purpose in life and fights against depression. For the past 15 months I’ve been sewing baby blankets for the local hospital to give its impoverished maternity patients. Just finished #200. Yep, a high purpose (to uphold the sanctity of life and bring glory to God). I serve people in other ways, too. Nice to know that being others-centered (which is commanded in scripture anyway--Gal. 5:13) has health benefits.

Experts also say it helps to have a walking companion. My husband and I take walks together at our town’s riverside trail. We thrill together to see wildlife (deer, beavers, ducks, eagles, red-winged blackbirds, geese, herons, cranes, even a skunk--which hastens our healthy walk!). But even when I walk alone, I have Someone along. God and I have some good talks as I walk. It’s something like David wrote, “Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee” (Psalm 143:8b KJV).

I’ll keep this short. It’s time for my walk!

Tired of winter

Snow is predicted as I write, but I don’t expect to see much. All around, spring is whispering its approach. Near my home, some daffodils have already pushed stems out of the thawing ground. This time of year, I’m drawn back to the poetry in Song of Songs (Solomon): "See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come" (2:11-12). Yes, I know this is supposed to be a love song between a king and his beloved. But it’s also a celebration of God’s lavish love for me. He, too, says, “Arise, come, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me” (v. 13).

God programmed into flowers the cycle of living and dying, seen so clearly in those that rise from bulbs. When I clip off the daffodils’ spent stems in late spring, I think of their pungent, brilliant yellow blooms. I’m also confident they’ll return the next spring.

If only such confidence fortressed my prayers for those in a persistent spiritual “winter.” Every day as I open my prayer notebook, my fingers pass over the names of many in this nation and overseas, who are missing out on God’s best for their lives. Some have no relationship with the God who created them. Others acknowledge God, but are stuck in life, like a February that stays gray, flowers that never push through soil, dirty snow piles that never melt. For them, I sometimes let the words of Ephesians 2:10 become my prayer: “Father, I know You care for them more than they’ll ever know. Remind them that they are Your workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which You prepared in advance for them to do. Help them rise out of ‘stuckness’ to the challenges and joys of serving You.”

Winter is part of nature, and of life. Because we live in a fallen world, we’ll all experience the chill of hardship and sorrow. But we also live in the light of Easter, the history-shattering reality of a Christ who didn’t stay dead and buried, but came back to life. God has “rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13-14).

Go back and re-read that verse. It thrills me. It’s part of Paul’s phenomenal prayer for the Colossian church, and includes petitions that their lives would bear fruit in loving service for God. Or, to borrow an old saying, that they’ll bloom for Him where they are planted.

I’m ready for spring. Let the thawing continue!

The Bad Bed Fairy

My children grew up with the expectation that you made your bed in the morning. If school mornings got too hurried, the “Bed Fairy” stepped in and made their beds—but that was to be the exception. Behind that rule was the expectation that learning to manage their rooms would eventually help them manage their lives. Ditto for other chores, like helping with dishes and taking out the garbage.
I grew up the same way. I never questioned the discipline, but knew I felt better about life when my room was clean. Not until I went to college and was assigned to dorm rooms with messy women did I realize some simply didn’t care. One roommate had a habit of leaving just-washed sheets in a heap on her bed while she went off and socialized for the evening while I studied. She usually returned well past bedtime. Not wanting to be awakened by her “bed-making duty,” I quietly made up her bed. Over and over.

One night, however, I was a bad bed fairy. I made her bed, all right, but “short-sheeted” it, pulling the top sheet up halfway so she couldn’t push her feet to the bottom. When she came back to the room (late, of course) and discovered my trickery, we had a good laugh. And I did show good will by re-doing her bed—the right way.

I never gave much thought to the division between “makers” and “messies” until reading an article recently that quoted published “life coaches.” Their conclusion: making your bed every morning (as 60% of the population does) has some amazing life benefits:

*A boost in happiness, including helping dispel gloom if you come home from school or work after a not-so-good day.

*A sense of organization for the rest of the day, helping you feel more motivated and even more productive. That’s because it’s a tiny task you can complete with visible results, energizing you to do another, and another, and…

*The establishment of a “keystone habit” that helps encourage good habits in other parts of one’s life. Among them: stronger skills at sticking to a budget.

I didn’t make this up! This is all straight from the keyboards of “life coaches” who get paid to tell people how to live better. Making your bed—who would have known?

Now, don’t throw your pillows at me. I won’t charge a penny for this friendly advice. I will quote another wise person: “Listen to advice and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days” (Proverbs 19:20).

Suitcases

One thing that endears Corrie ten Boom’s writings to me is her use of simple, memorable props. One comes from a story of speaking to war-weary Japanese soon after World War 2. Faced with a language barrier, she decided to use an object lesson: her suitcase. She asked them if their hearts felt like a heavy suitcase. They surely did. Then she pulled onto a table the heavy suitcase she’d taken all over the world. She told them her heart felt just as heavy the previous week. Then the Lord gave her a verse: “Cast all your cares upon Him, for he cares about you” (1 Peter 5:7).

Opening the suitcase, she began taking out its contents. Something represented her very tired co-workers. Another, her concerns about the next trip to a town where she knew nobody. Another item was her heavy heart for friends who were in a car wreck. Still another: a boy who refused to believe in Christ. Then she named the burdens of her own sins, including pride and self-seeking.

Finally, the suitcase empty, she declared “Amen,” closed it and walked out of the room swinging it. Her audience got the message: Cast all your care upon Him. Empty your “trouble suitcase.”

Recently my husband and I visited a friend who has an incurable, wasting disease. She is emptying her life’s suitcase and talks of going to Heaven soon. Her husband is also emptying a suitcase: that dream of growing very old together. On the way home, as I reflected on their life together, I thought of many burdens they’ve shared. They lost a baby. They went through a long season of care-giving. An adult child has struggled. There are other burdens that won’t go away during this lifetime. But God can carry them.

Many of us have a lot of stuff in our “trouble suitcases.” We may claim to “give it to God,” but we really haven’t. Even Corrie struggled in that area, as revealed in the second part of her story.

Years later in Europe she was approached by a Japanese gentleman who remembered her speech about the “trouble suitcase.” Unfortunately, he didn’t remember the “emptying,” but instead how after the meeting she reloaded that heavy suitcase and dragged it away, as tired and burdened as when she came in.

That afternoon in the privacy of her room, Corrie thought about whether she practiced what she preached. She realized how in her morning prayer time, she might unpack the “trouble suitcase.” But throughout the day, she often took back the very things she had entrusted to her Heavenly Father.

A few hours after visiting the dying friend, I called on someone else who often precedes a conversation with, “I’m so worried about….” Repeatedly I remind this person to trust God instead of worrying. But the admonition inevitably boomerangs to me, causing me to ask, “How heavy is my own trouble suitcase? What can God carry lots better than I can?”

We know the answer: everything.

Paraphrasing a well-known credit card ad: what’s in your suitcase?