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. 

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

Volcanic Eruptions

Consider this story:

A woman went out to plant a maple tree.  She took a lovely clay pot and poured a huge box of baking soda into it.   She then selected a nice straight maple tree, spread out its roots and firmly planted it in the pot of soda.  She took a watering can full of vinegar and poured it over the tree and set it bubbling away on the sunny windowsill hoping it would eventually grow to be a wonderful addition to her yard.  A day or so later, she noticed that the tree was sitting in  white sludge  in the pot, she added more baking soda to refill the pot and added more vinegar to water it.  She again set it bubbling away on the window sill.  When she returned the next day, the tree was withered and dry.  She poured more vinegar but nothing helped and the tree died.  She took the tree to the trash and as she tipped it out of its pot, it slimed out with the white sludge oozing into the can.

In our lives we are bombarded daily, sometimes moment by moment by other people all wanting their way.  Simply put, all of us are selfish in some way or another.  What happens when we are on the receiving end of other people's desires for control? What happens to us when we are hurt, or angered by someone's lack of respect, sensitivity, or power hungry efforts?  These things can happen in small incidents throughout our day, sifting like fine grains of baking soda into our pot (life).  We may take the slights, the insults, and the inflicted anger and often hold our reactions in, but underneath the surface we may be resenting the individual for the hurt they caused.  We grip onto that resentment and often go home thinking on it and mulling it over in our mind.  Reminding ourselves how thoughtless that person was or we think about how embarrassed we felt in front of others or how wrong it was that they got a promotion over us or how wrong it was that they took out their personal frustrations on us and the list can go on and on.  Sometimes we even ponder ways to get even with them, to get back at them, to make them feel like we did when they hurt us. We may ignore them when they walk past in the hallway, or not return their phone calls, or talk negatively about them to others behind their back.

There are other days when we may be hanging out and someone really ticks us off.  They will say something that just finally sends us over the edge. We’ve taken their insults over and over again and have had enough.  Or perhaps taken stuff from a lot of other folks and this is the final straw and we go off.   Like heaping a pile of baking soda into the pot and pouring an entire bottle of vinegar over it, we explode in anger lashing out at them.  When we do this we likely ruin our relationship with this person, and damage our relationship with all who witnessed the episode.  

Some folks may be angry about broken relationships with others.  Spouses who left for someone new, someone you're dating dumped you for someone else, a sibling or parent or child or friend left in anger moving away and never calls anymore.   Your heart is broken by the loss and you sit and rehash all the events wondering if you did something different, or said something else, would it have turned out differently.  You think about all the unfeeling, hurtful comments the person made and fester, bubbling away.

Other people are bubbling from the pain of loss in their lives.  Someone or perhaps they themself is in ill health and may die.  A child has a disability or they got laid off from their job or they can't have a child.  Loss comes in many different packages, but most of you have seen it in some form or another.  We grieve the loss and ache inside wanting things to be different, but if we aren't careful we can focus so much on the loss that we bubble and fester and can't let go of it and we wither and die ourselves from the lack of ability to move forward. Sometimes too we are wandering in this loss and others try to help us through and we get angry at their remarks, or attempts to help us move forward and we begin to fester even more, adding anger on top of our grief.  We feel that life is unfair, that is isn' t right that these things happened to us and the sludge of bitterness begins to take hold sucking us down in the muck until we wither.

Unforgiveness is like a volcano inside of us.  Often it will start out small with little incidents that filter in that we just accept and try hard to ignore, but they build until our relationship with a person is like a boiling cauldron of lava wanting to overflow.  We smile and continue on but all the time are reminded of past incidents as new ones occur.  Eventually we find ourselves surrounded by lots of people that have all slighted us in some way or another and we can't escape them.  We get tired of being the one on the receiving end of their self importance and want to dish some out of our own for a change. 

 Notice there is no water.  When unforgiveness and bitterness, take hold of us, we tend to shut down and shut out God.  We don't turn to His Word.  We ignore the fresh Living Water that will refresh our spirit and help us to let go and instead we opt to steep ourselves in the bitter vinegar of reviewing it all and rehearsing our responses. There is a popular phrase that says "revenge is sweet” but is it really?   If left to fester, anger, resentment and revenge will blow up into a huge sliming mess that will ooze out  affecting everyone around us but also will leave us in a mess of salty sludge causing us to wither and die bearing no fruit.  In Romans 12: 19 Paul exhorts us “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord.  "But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head."  It is hard, so hard, to be kind and show grace to someone who has wronged you.

  All that stuff gets between you and that person, but it also gets between you and God.  Bitterness will take root inside your heart.  You will get angry that no one helped you fix the problem, that God didn't answer your prayers to restore the relationship and bitterness builds up.  In Ephesians 4:31 - 32 Paul writes "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."  Consider how many times "and" appears in these verses.  There is quite a list of things that God wants us to put away.  Holding on to all these things hardens our hearts, like a lava flow snaking across a plain, cooling but hardening over time.  Notice the order of the words,  after one puts away all these things he says" be kind", followed by "tender-hearted" followed by" forgiving". It is a progression of our taking action, followed by the heart changing which enables the kindness, tenderness and forgiveness to occur.  But I also think the word "just" is vital here, the remembrance of what God has done in your own life.  You cannot do any of this until you look to Him and remember what He has done in love and grace for you, let go of any bitterness and anger towards Him, reaching to Him, trusting He cares for you, and then He will enable you to forgive others. 

So then a choice remains, will you trust the Master Gardener loves you and forgives you? Will you allow Him to uproot you from this sludge of unforgiveness and bitterness and put it way from you making the move of allowing Him to take you into His hand and let Him plant you firmly in the soil of a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ?  Or will you let yourself harden in the lava flow forever entombed, withered and dead from the heat of anger and pain in your life?

Lava: a melted rock that solidifies as it hardens

Love: a melted heart that solidifies relationships with God and others

Clipped and Primped

Consider this story:

A woman was planting a tree.  She took a lovely ceramic pot and filled it full of hair clips and scrunchies, nail polish bottles, and lip gloss.   She took the tree and spread out its roots and planted it in the pot of beauty products watered it thoroughly and set it in the sunny windowsill.  A few days later the tree looked wilted so she watered it again and left it there to grow.   After a while the tree withered and died.  She couldn’t figure out how a tree that looked so good could die like that.

Everywhere we look in the world around us, these days, we find something or someone telling us how we can improve our appearance.  They tell us what we need to fix about ourselves and what we need to buy to help us make friends and fit in with everyone else.  Advertising tells us what tech toys and apps to buy so we can stay in touch with everyone.  Beauty ads tell us what makeup to buy to look flawless or what medicine to buy to rid ourselves of blemishes. Clothes stores show us all the latest fashions to be trendy and look good.  Magazines show us pictures of the hottest stars and what they are wearing and how they live. They also show us how to diet, and give us tips on sex. TV ads tell us what stuff to use to keep from getting wrinkles and sagging skin or hair coloring to buy to get rid of gray hair.  All around us are people with ideas about how we need to look and act. 

If we are not careful, we can get caught up in this constant focus on our outer beauty.  Is it wrong to look nice? Certainly not.  But what about when we plant ourselves deeply in what the world tells us we need to be beautiful?  When we race from the hair salon, to the nail salon, to the jewelry shop, to the clothes shop, grab a coffee from the drive up to then hit the tanning salon and a quick stop by the shoe store to see what’s new before heading home to work out on the treadmill and eat a low calorie dinner so we can fit into our swimwear this summer.   While working out we text our friends about the cute tops we saw in the store and the newest flip flops we just have to have and on and on about what we think we need to be beautiful.  What we need to make us happy but it’s a never ending cycle of stuff.

We all want to feel beautiful.  To feel loved.  To feel we fit in.  But if we plant ourselves in the outward beauty of vanity, we will wither and die not producing fruit in our lives. When we root ourselves in vanity, we are telling God that the way He made us isn’t good enough and that what He wants is not what we want. Instead of producing the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, we want the fruit of flirting in a bar with a hot date,  the joy of the new aroma of the latest perfume or aftershave, peaceful relaxing in the spa,  patiently waiting for the girl to finish our manicure, kindly giving a good tip to the hairdresser because we like our trendy haircut,  talking about all the good buys we found at the  mall, being loyal to our favorite latte, gently tweezing our eyebrows, and resisting temptation by buying only two colors of those shoes instead of all four colors.  We are telling God that we need to do stuff to ourselves to be accepted and that we need to be accepted by others who rely on how we look to decide if they want to be our friends.  He wants us to see that He loves us no matter what we look like.  No matter how we act.  He looks at your heart.  Somehow I think we don’t believe God means it when He says it.

Perhaps you do all this stuff to yourself because you don’t like yourself.  You don’t like who you are.  You don’t see yourself as someone that matters to God.  He made you. In Psalm 139:14 He says you are” fearfully and wonderfully made”.  This doesn’t mean you are frightful! (though you might be with curlers in your hair!)  You are reverently and carefully and beautifully made just the way you are.  You have a purpose and a plan.  If you go changing yourself to some image you have or the world has in mind, then you don’t fulfill that plan or purpose the way He intended.

You are important and beautiful to Him.    Let that matter most in your life.  Spend time in His word.  Let Him show you how beautiful you are to him as you bask in how wonderful and awesome He is. You don’t need nail polish, hair clips and all that primping to be a beautiful person.  Enjoy looking nice, but don’t get so wrapped up in it that you can’t live without it.  Don’t settle for this lesser beauty.  Let your true beauty come out in a relationship with the Master Gardener.   Let Him uproot you from your indulgent beauty habits and plant you in the solidness of His love for you for He delights in you!

Primpness:  A daughter of the world who needs to do stuff to herself to make her beautiful.

Princess:  A daughter of the King who sees herself as beautiful as He sees her.

Life: A Bowl Full of Skittles®?

                                                    

Consider this story:

A woman went to her potting bench to plant a maple tree.  She took out a clay pot, opened up a large bag of skittles® candies and poured them into the pot.  She picked up the tiny tree and releasing it from its pot she spread out its roots to air them and help them reach out and grow into the "skittle® soil" and planted it hoping its leaves would be as fresh and enjoyable as the skittles.  She took her watering can and watered it thoroughly and set it on her windowsill to take advantage of the bright sunlight.   Days later she noticed the tree was withered and dry.  The skittles® were not as fresh and bright as they were the first day but now more white and mushy.     She watered it more but nothing helped and the tree finally died.  When she tipped the pot into the garbage to empty it out, a large white clump of gooey candy fell out with a dead plant sticking out of it.

Now to consider planting a maple tree in skittles® seems quite absurd but I want to share some interesting spiritual truths from this modern look at a soil parable.  In Psalm 1:3 God says that we are supposed to be "like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither..."    Does our story exemplify this verse?   Yes, the maple was firmly planted in those skittles®, there were streams of water but there was no fruit in season and the leaves did wither.

 As a gardener, I have learned over many seasons of planting, that the conditions of the soil will largely determine the outcome of the growing of the plants.  If the soil holds too much water, the plants will likely drown just as if it is sandy it won't hold enough water and be too dry and the plant will wither and die.  Consider the maple tree's soil. Skittles® when watered will lose their color leaving behind a sticky white gooey mess.  This goo will stick to your teeth as well as the roots of this plant eventually holding it fast in this pot, unable to escape its grip.  This is just like when we get caught in the grip of ungodly habits in our lives.  We get so caught up in them and we cannot let go because they attract us like those colorful sweet skittles®.   More often than not, we end up giving in to even more of the same sinful habit because we cannot let go of it, we end up heaping even more "skittle® soil" into the pot, hoping to become happy and fulfilled when all we get is a hollow emptiness in the end that leaves our soul withered and dead.

  When the living water rushes over the "soil" in this pot we notice that the colors run out into a dirty brown ugly mess leaving behind the sticky white goo of the sugar, gripping onto the roots of the plant. Likewise, we seek God's living Word to quench our thirst and help to break us free from the grip of the sin we have allowed into our lives.  When that water rushes over us, it begins to wash away the colorful candy coating  of the sin, revealing the true ugliness of the chains that have gripped us  and showing us how we are in dire need of being planted in the true soil of a relationship with God in Jesus Christ.  Then we are faced with the choice of returning to the colorful skittle® habit or facing that ugly habit and getting rid of it.

One would then tend to think that we just have to work harder to get that sin out of our lives to free ourselves from it.  To be disciplined enough to quench it and sadly this takes the focus off the Master Gardener.  The maple tree all alone, cannot wrench itself out of this sticky mess. For even if it could somehow manage to jump out of the pot on its own, it would still be stuck with goo on its roots and dying.  The plant, like our spirit, needs the Master Gardner's hand to remove it from the mess, to wash off all the muck of sin and plant it in the true healthy soil of a relationship with Him for it to take root and be fruitful. The real decision then is do we let the Master free us from our sin or do we continue to cling to it trying in vain, in our own power, to free ourselves from its grip, yet unable to let go of the rush?

And then there's the sunlit window.  God always shines his light in every person's life.  Second Peter 3:9 says "The Lord is ... not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."  He wants everyone to bask in His light.  But to truly live, you have to be rooted in a relationship with Him or you may as well be living in a dark room.   Staying rooted in the sinful habits we choose to allow in our life will cause our soul to wither and die. 

What are the”Skittles®” in your life? 

Perhaps you are gripped by lust, food, drugs, video games, alcohol, television, money, power . . .

 Only you and God can truly know the grip of sinful habits in your life.  The only way to free yourself is to let Him uproot you, clean you off no matter how painful that may be and let go as He does.  Are you willing?   

 Skittles®:  Colorful bits of sugar.  Sugar that gives a rush of satisfaction in taste, followed by energy given to the body, followed by a crash which gives the urge to eat more to have more energy,  followed by a continued empty hunger for real food.

Sinful Habits:  Habits that on the outside seem colorful and inviting, sweet to the taste and giving one the rush of pleasure to partake of it, followed by the urge for more to have more and experience more, followed by a continued empty hunger for a real relationship with God.

Tree Fascination

It all began in a garden with God, man and two specific trees.  The battle for our souls has been waged ever since.  Life versus knowledge of good and evil.  Two trees, luscious, tempting fruit. A pure relationship between Creator and created, tainted by the allure of the possibilities that something else better was there to relate to. 

I have always had a fascination with gardens and with trees in particular.  I often find myself wishing I had a camera in hand when gazing upon a magnificent, sturdy, weathered tree that has stood the test of time.  I think of the many storms the tree must have stood through and how much stronger it grew over the time it has been there. I want to capture the moment to remind myself of the beauty and strength I see.   I believe it is God reminding me that like this tree stretching its branches up to Him to reach the sunlight, I need to reach up to Him for His light and love radiating down to me to warm me, nurture me and give me food and strength.    It is like the tree is silently praising the Creator by its outstretched branches and so should I with outstretched arms. To stand there and be still and know He is God. 

I am equally fascinated by the fact that there are so many varieties of trees.  That there are no two trees exactly alike.  That each one has similar leaves but not all of them are the same.  That leaves are much like snowflakes.  This makes me think about how much leaves are like people; all different sizes, shapes and colors with no two exactly alike.  But when you really think on this further, you realize that all of them survive by staying attached to the tree and that no matter who we are we need to be attached to that tree, rooted in the ground, reaching up to the Light to survive. 

And then there are seeds.  Like leaves they are all different, no two exactly alike. Each tree has its own seeds and those seeds are programmed by the Creator to produce exactly the same type of tree they came from.  I think on how those seeds, are produced by fruit.  How the fruit is the means by which the seeds get planted.   What kind of fruit do we produce?  Galatians 5 tells us the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  What about the fruit that is not of the Spirit?  Do we have that too? It is interesting to consider fruit.  In Eden, one tree’s fruit gave the partaker life eternal.  The other tree’s fruit opened the mind to understand the evils of disobedience.  Which fruit do you yield in your life?   

 Something else I find intriguing about trees is that the part underneath the ground looks similar to the part you see above the ground.  A tree’s root system is a network of branches stretching out beneath the soil, feeding on the nutrients and water there.  I have been taught that the radius of branches a tree has above the ground is how extensive its root system is beneath the ground.  That its roots extend out as far and as deeply as its width and height above the ground.  I have seen massive trees, and cannot begin to imagine how massive their roots must be to hold them fast and sturdy.  This also makes me think on how if the soil isn’t sufficient how it will effect the growth of the tree.  Also how the top of the tree and the roots depend on each other to survive.

Look with me, in the days ahead, at some modern glimpses of parables of soils.  Pray and ponder as you do and let God work in your heart to reveal what He will and let Him change you.