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

The Powerhouse

The Great I Am is the Powerhouse

Source of the life we have.

Jesus is the outlet that joins us to the Powerhouse

Without Him we are useless.

We are all unique appliances each with different functions:

Flood lamps lighting the way for many

Search lights pointing to the destination

Nightlights showing the way for one child lost in darkness

 Extension cords enabling one to reach another

Reaching far and wide across continents

Radios broadcasting His Word and singing His praises

Computers reaching world wide in all languages

Cell phones reaching one individual at a time

 Batteries charged up, going to remote places, to power a light, to show the way

Sewing machines joining people together

Washing machines cleansing dirty hearts and minds

Mixers blending folks together into a team

 Vacuum cleaners cleaning up messes others leave behind

Irons smoothing out ruffled attitudes and wrinkles in plans

Pencil sharpeners shaving off useless distractions so we can make a strong point

Air purifiers, cleansing the unwanted, clearing the air

Smoke alarms warning that fiery danger is imminent

Clocks reminding us time is short so make the most of it

 Fans cooling off the hot tempered or bringing refreshing breeze

Space heaters thawing out icy hearts

Heating pads soothing one weary traveler

Furnaces, unseen, providing warmth and encouragement for all

All of us make this world we are passing through an easier place to live

But without the Power House and the Outlet none of us can work

 What appliance are you?    

Are you plugged in?  

                                 

Tracy Whipple © 2010



Are You A Cracked Pot?

Genesis 2:7

 ⁷Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Jeremiah 18 ¹  The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying,  ²"Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will announce My words to you."  ³Then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.  ⁴But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.  ⁵Then the word of the LORD came to me saying,  ⁶"Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

I have seen in the past an actual potter who came to share at my church teaching us from this scripture and talking about clay and how it is worked and formed.  She shared about how clay can become spoiled and how it can be pushed back down and remade.  It is fascinating, though not fascinating enough to me to make me want to get my hands dirty like that.  (I’ll stick to gardening) I have heard many sermons too on the importance of being a clay pot, moldable by God to be shaped how He desires to hold the living water and be just like He wants me to be. And how He makes us all as different pots for the unique plan He has for us.   

I have some other thoughts on this.  When I watched the shaping and molding by that potter, it looked like a lot of pressure and force and water, and muck. It reminded me of Genesis 2: 7 how God formed man from the dust of the ground.  That would be clay in the potter’s hand.  But also how God works out all that mucky, yucky sin out of us so we can turn out like He wants us to be.   It wasn’t too clean.  It wasn’t easy for that clay.  But it was necessary for a beautiful pot to turn out and not have an air pocket that would make it explode on being fired in the kiln. Thinking on that kiln, it gets pretty hot.  That clay goes through a pretty wretched process to turn out into a lovely pot.  But it is more than one process.  It is multiple.  Like in our lives.

I have always believed that the Holy Spirit flows through us as Living Water into us and out of us to nourish us and others.  It’s kind of like we are a pipeline that He flows and works through here in this world.   

But, in the first place, if we are a pot that is whole and perfect we would fill and fill and fill before finally spilling over to others.  That is a nice thought.  But we sure would keep that Living Water bottled up inside of ourselves a while before we finally overflow and trickle over to the lives right around our immediate circle.  I think that a lot of times we want to be like this pot.   Calmer, less obtrusive, looking good on the outside, Spirit filled on the inside, got it all together with God yet small outflow.

In the second place, I have had a different thought of late on that pot being molded and shaped by God.  Perhaps instead of thinking of ourselves as this wonderful beautiful perfectly formed clay pot.  We should consider that most of us are really cracked pots.  I know you are probably thinking right now that I am the cracked pot J but consider, that in all of our lives, we go through lots of difficulties, hardships, sorrows, pain,  etc.  Some of us experience more than others but we all have them.  I like to think of it like maybe God shapes us by letting us go through those tough times and even though we may lose a chunk out of our pot, or get a crack here or there as we survive through another time of great stress we are really turning into that vessel that it pleased the potter to make. 





by T. Whipple '08

Consider then that maybe we are just all cracked pots, broken by all the things in life that we experience yet we’re fragilely, lovingly held together by the Master so that His Living Water can flow through us and out to all those around us to water and nourish more of them.  Another thing to think further on is that in Genesis 3:19 He says dust we are and to dust we return.  The more chipped and cracked we get, the more pieces get dropped and smashed, the more we are crushed back to dust, but all the more we pour Him out to others. Perhaps we need to  look at the end of our life here on earth as when we finally return to dust, fall totally apart, watered our last soul and that is when He takes us home to celebrate the beautiful vessel we became for Him. 

Are you broken and cracked?

 Let’s get dusty!    J

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.

Running the Race

Hurry! Rush! Be quick about it!

All our lives are hasty

We text

We call

We Skype

We Twitter

We Facebook

Download those new apps

We cut people off in traffic

We run red lights, stop signs

We speed

We interrupt

We microwave

We order takeout

We stop at Starbucks

Everything to save time, to get it done, to expedite

The more we rush, the more time we crave

The more we rush, the less time we save

Be still and know that I am God

How do we do that

In our body and our mind?

We have to stop

Listen

Wait on Him

Trust that He is enough

To overcome our weaknesses

God is a jealous God

He won’t stand being multitasked

Love Him with all your heart, soul and mind

Slow Down

Be still

Take Time

Rest in Him

Read His Word

Pray

Tracy Whipple © 2010

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.