Jekyll or Hyde?

Consider this story:  A woman went out to a vacant weedy litter cluttered city lot to plant two trees.  For the first tree she dug a hole in the rubbish of broken beer bottles, ripped up lotto tickets, used syringes, empty food cans and wrappers, broken toys and old car parts.  She planted the tree and watered it thoroughly leaving it to fend for itself in that filthy hole and taking its sustenance whenever the rain fell to water it.  For the other tree, she dug a huge hole, filled in the hole with compost and good soil and planted the tree firmly in it.  She watered it well and checked on it often to see to it that even in the dry spells it received plenty of water.  The first tree grew slowly.  It was weak, and spindly.  In good rains, it blossomed and leafed out but fruit was extremely rare.  The second tree grew tall and lush.  It always blossomed and the fruit was delicious.  Children from the neighborhood would come and play in its shade and climb among its branches, thankful for the safe cool place to play in the heat of summer.  Thankful for a haven in which to play away from the nastiness of the life in which they lived.  Moms would gather and talk and laugh underneath its shade, grateful for the relief from the heat and thankful for the fruit to help feed their children.

Which tree are you? 

Are you the first tree planted in the rubbish of life?  Do you go to church on Sunday mornings, your Bible in hand, looking all nice, but stiff, in your Sunday best? Do you then go home and join the masses of folks going to work each week, nose to the grindstone forgetting what you heard, never opening your Bible again all week long? Perhaps you join in the raucous laughter of dirty jokes told in the break room?  Perhaps you head to the pub after work for beers with your buddies?  Perhaps you stop off by the convenience store for the daily lotto ticket hoping to win your fortune?  Maybe you yell and cuss your kids out when they interrupt you reading the paper or your favorite sports magazine?  Perhaps you come home to watch the soap operas you DVR’d or that R rated movie everyone else is raving about?   Are you Hyde?  Do you think that you are doing all the right stuff by going to church each week as Jekyll, but then turn to Hyde all week after that joining in the worlds ugliness, taking part in the filth?  Are you like that first tree, getting scant rain as you worship each time you manage to go (around your fishing trips, vacations, sleeping in or shopping trip needs) and then trying to grow amid the rubbish of life?  You think you are living a noble life, walking among sinners like Christ did, but are you really walking like He did?  He walked among them with compassion on them.  He served them giving them relief and rest.  He ate with them, yes, but He called them out on their sin and didn’t participate in the sin with them.  Are you doing this?  If you are joining them in the sin, you are telling them being a Christian is nothing different than what they already live like, that they don’t need to change.  And they won’t change.  They won’t want to know Him.   Are you Hyde? 

I have lived like Hyde, all too often in my life.  I think we all do.  I have worked under the pressure of nasty folks who wanted me to fit in with the group and be like they were.  I had to walk the line of joining in or being different.  I understand that road very well. I also went to school with them. Some of you do too. 

 I also know I want to be like Jekyll.  I want to be good and sweet and nurturing and loving and compassionate.  I want to be that second tree, firmly planted in good soil, reading His word all week long, spending time in prayer, worshipping each week with others who are also firmly planted.  Well watered.  Growing and impacting those who are needing Christ, loving them, helping them, encouraging them, listening to them. Showing them what true rest and shade is.  Giving them a place to come that is different and refreshing.  They are thirsty.  They are rooted in that rubbish too.  They want good fruit. I want Him to produce that fruit through me.  I want to dare to be different.  Dare to love yet, not participate in the sin.  Dare to show someone that Christ is faithful and will be all that they need in life and that they don’t need that rubbish to be happy.

I long to be Jekyll all of the time and to leave Hyde behind forever.  Do you? 

In Luke 13:6-9 Jesus calls us to repentance using a parable: 

 ⁶And He began telling this parable: "A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any.
 ⁷"And he said to the vineyard-keeper, 'Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?'
 ⁸"And he answered and said to him, 'Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer;
 ⁹and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down

In contemplating this, I have spent more time reading in the Gospels.  I want to see how Jesus lived.  He walked among the needy, sinners, broken, and sick.  He had compassion.  But He also called folks to walk away from their sin.  He didn’t participate in it.  How did He do that?  Yes, He is God.  But He also took lots of time away in quiet prayer with the Father.  Numerous times throughout the gospel accounts, you will see a simple verse like Luke 5:16   But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.   Don’t you think that if Jesus needed time away for this that we do too?  I know I do.  I know if I don’t, I start to be Hyde in the worst way.  We can’t just be Jekyll on Sunday mornings hoping that he will last us through the week and then change to Hyde all week long and hope to be pleasing to God.   Luke 13: 9 says we will be cut down if we do not bear fruit.  I know I don’t want to be cut down.  

I pray you, like me, will want to live a rich full fruitful life like the second tree.  I pray too that we will take time in the Word, letting the Holy Spirit water us.  That we will let Him help rid our lives of the rubbish.  That we will encourage others to live Godly lives to help them and hold them accountable to see the rubbish by being the refreshment and shade with luscious fruit that they will desire to have for themselves. 

Hyde:   Spending your days rooted in filth, your heart full of that and fruitless

Jekyll:  Spending your days rooted in faith, watered by His Spirit, with fruit from Him. 

Garden Hose

Jesus is the Master Gardener He tends His garden well

His Living Water flows to keep the lost from hell

Each of us are different, a hose of every type

The Gardener knows which one to use to make things work out right

Sometimes a sprinkler’s needed to give refreshing rain

He casts it out all around to souls who are in pain

Sometimes He sends a soaker hose; it drips, underneath, unseen

It gives just enough around the roots to keep things growing green

Other times the field is large and rain has been quite scarce

He sends out an irrigator and the whole field grows up fierce

                                                                                               

                       

Sometimes we need a power wash to get the crusty dirt

To rid our life of unwanted stuff it takes a powerful squirt

Sometimes the fire is burning, the field going up in smoke

The Fireman brings His hose right in and saves all in a brilliant stroke

Sometimes there is a huge rainstorm and only a battered gutter

It carries all the rain to wash a weedy yard of clutter

Other days only a small cup is needed, a rusty hand pump is what He sends

A few good cranks is what it takes to get folks on the mend

We are each just a simple garden hose, the Master Gardener knows the need

It is up to us to let Water through for He has thirsty souls to feed

Tracy Whipple  © 2010

In The Pits

Consider this story:

A woman went out to plant a tree.  She dug a 5 foot deep hole and planted the tree down in it, watering it thoroughly leaving it to grow.  She continued to water it and eventually the tree grew up out of the hole, thin and spindly bending over greatly in the gentlest of breezes.  That winter, as the snowstorms raged, the tree bent over further and further under the weight of the snow and eventually snapped never again to grow, leaf out or produce any fruit.

All of us at some point in our life will be sitting in the pit of loneliness and depression.  Most of us will experience it because of a major loss in our life, such as a loved one dying.  Others of us may walk a road of physical pain that never ends and we get more and more depressed from the physical beating we withstand each day.  Some of us are reeling from job loss and financial ruin.  Hungry, tired, and can’t get off the treadmill of sadness.

We feel buried in darkness, down in a deep pit of despair.  We are hiding out in darkness, not wanting to get out of bed, or come out of the house.  Feeling alone in a hole, thinking that no one else cares to know what we are going through. We may stretch to reach out to God and others and we pretend, put on a face, a mask. We act like everything is okay when inside we are thin, weak and spindly.  The slightest storm will topple us over, breaking our resolve and sending us plummeting back into the pit of despair.

The Master Gardener, knows when you are in the pit of despair.  He has been there too.  His only Son died and He sees and understands your pain.  He wants to carry your burden.  Let Him carry you. Let Him guide and help you out of the pit.    He will uproot you from the pit and plant you solidly in a relationship with Him where His arms encircle you and hug you and hold you.  He will carry you through the sorrow and the pain and you won’t be alone.  He will plant you in full sunlight, water you and nurture you till you grow strong and bear fruit for Him. 

Are you in the pits?

He’s the only one that can truly pull you out.

On The Rocks

Consider this story:

A woman went out to plant a maple tree.  She took a bag of beautiful rounded stones and poured them out into a lovely clay pot.  She took the tree out of its pot and spread out its roots. She then planted the tree firmly in the stones and watered it thoroughly and set it in a sunlit windowsill so it would grow.  Every day she watered it but it began to wither and dry up.  No amount of watering seemed to help and eventually the tree died.  As she tipped the tree from its beautiful pot, the tree fell out gripping tightly to the stones clinging on for dear life when no life was there.

In situations I have seen, plants will grow in many interesting ways when confronted with rocks.    As someone who has tried to grow carrots for a number of years, growing those in rocky soil will give you some wild shaped roots for whenever the carrot root hits a rock, it will simply grow around it continuing its path down if at all possible.  In this case, it is important to realize that the surface of the rock was impenetrable for the plant to root and grow.   Like these roots, we all crave the good rich soil of a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ.  We are all seeking, and searching for what is missing in our lives just like these roots are looking for the dirt and will go to any extreme to find some. Will we grow straight and true or come out all gnarly and crooked from all the stones we try to root into?

In our lives we live in nice homes, have good jobs, beautiful cars, clothes, money to spend and to everyone on the outside, we seem typical, normal and happy.  But maybe underneath the surface, things aren't so happy; your roots are hitting hard stones, the fears that lay hidden deep in your heart.   Fears of failure, not being loved, not having friends, not making good enough grades,  not having enough money, fears about how your children will grow up, fear of missing out on what is important in life, fear of dying.  We tend to obsess over them thinking of all the angles and ways we can cover them up, telling ourselves that this will fix the problem.   What we realize, sometimes too late, is that we can’t get rid of them on our own.    The only control we truly have is to choose to be slaves to our inner fears or to be truly free with the Master Gardener taking care of us.

The real issue then is trust.  Who do you trust?  Yourself and your ability to somehow overcome all of your fears by using the trappings of false security?  Or do you trust the Master Gardener?

Some of you don't know Jesus Christ, the Master Gardener.  You don't know that He is trustworthy.  You have so many fears already that you think He cannot possibly handle them all.  That you have wrecked things in your life so badly that He couldn’t possibly want to love you.  Or that since you can’t physically see Him, He can’t be trusted.  You are searching around the rocks of fear in your life, thirsty, unable to find what you need.   We are all made to root into that good healthy soil of a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. He made you and loves you and wants you to be free from fear.    Will you trust Him?  Will you let go of being afraid that He isn't trustworthy?   Ask Jesus to help you trust Him right now.

 Some of you will say you already trust the Master Gardener and want Him to uproot you from all the fears you obsess over. That you are going to give Him total control of your life and trust His care and do all the right things.    But do you trust Him enough to really let go of control of everything in the deepest part of your heart?  An aspect of trust many of us miss is that we have to make the first move and let go of it all when we do.  Like the rich young ruler in Matthew 19: 16-26 we can do all the right things on the outside that show we trust, but are we willing to trust and give up control of everything in our inner lives? When we tell the Master Gardener that we are ready and want Him to plant us firmly in the soil of a relationship with Him will we let go of all of the rocks we are wrapped around?  Or will we hold on to some of them while letting go of others and our roots have to be lovingly released one by one, stone by stone, fear by fear,  until we truly let go of them all?   Will we remain withering and fruitless, languishing and frustrated that our relationship with the Master Gardener isn't like we thirst for it to be? How long will it take for you to totally trust Him?

Another thing to consider is that when we let go and trust Him we are free.  Truly free. Nothing is weighing us down; we don't have to pretend we are in control, to look good, to save face.  He reminds us in Luke Chapter 12 that we do not need to fear, but He will take care of us that to "seek His kingdom and these things will be added to you"  Seek the rich soil of a relationship with Him and be free.    But so often instead, we will be like Peter walking on the water in Matthew 14: 22-32.  We start out looking at the Master and when He calls us to come to His hand trusting Him to uproot us from our fears and to care for us and plant us in the richness of a relationship with Him we gladly let go.  Then we look around us and become fearful of the fact that we are letting go.  We take our eyes off of Him and fear again takes control.   Fear negates trust and freedom.  God's Word tells us over and over again to not be afraid, that He is with us.  The Master Gardner knows that fear will be the main thing that will keep you from being free.  He wants you to be free. He wants you to look to Him and let go of all the rocks.

On the rocks:  In or into a condition of ruin or catastrophe, bankrupt

On the Rock:  In a condition of freedom trusting in Jesus Christ for all you are and need