Where are You Spring?

Okay, sorry, I know I promised a blog in the few days following my last post and now here it is a week later. "Better late than never"

The fall here was beautiful, the winter was snowy and cold, and the spring... well I don't know yet. I grew up in San Antonio, TX. I'm used to maybe a month or two or semi-cold weather then back to milder temperatures. The summers there are long and the kids can't concentrate in school past spring break because you just want to go outside and play. But that isn't what I'm getting here. Winter has been cold and long. I loved the snow and was thankful it wasn't the ice storms of Oklahoma, but when does this end? Today the high is 79! But I've seen this before. We even had a whole weekend of mid 60s only to drop back below freezing and get a light flurry. They're predicting we may even see snow in May. May!? Oh please Lord, save me from this misery!

When will the trees bloom? Will the leaves be gone forever? I wanted to write a spring follow up to my fall and winter blogs talking of the renewal we find in the Lord. But God isn't letting me do that. Instead he's teaching me something else. It's a lesson I've had to endure before. But never has it been so poignant.

As I drive through Topeka, I see the barren trees and gaze into the gray sky, wondering where all the beauty of life is. When will I feel the warmth of the sun? When will I see the signs of new life. And then the other day I noticed something. The grass is green. No, not just the overly fertilized grass of businesses and the professionally manicured ones in the nicer neighborhoods. All the grass is green. All over Topeka I see green grass. Oh and beautiful yellow bushes with a sprinkle of a few red buds on smaller trees. Once again my focus was only on the bad, the dreary, what God wasn't making beautiful in my life. I failed to see that the Lord was blessing the very ground I walk upon. Though the sky gray and many trees still barren, the path the Lord has laid before me is blessed. There is life. I just have to be willing to see it.

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." (Psalm 23:4)

When all that is around you seems dead; when the world's not all as it should be, know that the very path you tread is laid out by the Hand of God.

Okay so before starting this blog I wrote on xanga. I've got a blog to share with you guys, but in order to fully understand and appreciate it I have to make sure you've all read some previous blogs of my from xanga. So below are two thoughts that originally were posted on xanga and I'll post the new blog in the next day or two.

PREPARING FOR WINTER

I love living in the part of Kansas that has trees. Topeka is full of trees. As one resident said the other day, "the trees in town are more beautiful than the trees out of town." I had come back to the church today from lunch before realizing that I didn't have the van keys which I needed to return to their place before assembly tonight. So I drove back across town to my apartment. While on my way through the neighborhood around the church building I saw this tree with pure red-orange leaves all the same shade. The majority of the leaves had already fallen to the ground creating a blanket surrounding the base of the tree. There were only a few leaves left on the branches near the bottom of the tree. What a beautiful site it was. It got me thinking, why is it that trees shed all of their "protection" when preparing for the winter cold? So often when we go through winters in our lives we quickly gather in all our "protection" to try and hide from the deathly chill that surrounds us. And then I pictured myself before God. I'm standing there trying to grasp at each leaf as it falls from around me. Obviously I can't keep up. God just shakes his head. In the end I've got a handful of dead leaves that are no longer doing me any good. Then I pictured myself standing before God much like the tree I had seen. I'm before him, almost completely bare as he gently removes one by one the things I before was so desperately grasping for. Spilled all around my feet are those things that I thought would protect me from the trouble ahead. My hands are empty so that I can grasp the hand God is reaching out to me. Come next spring I suspect, just as it has happened year after year, that tree will be growing a fresh set of green leaves, blooming anew. I too can look forward to a fresh beginning, a season of sunnier days. But in order for me to make it through the winter, I need to be willing to strip myself bare before my God so that He can breathe that new life into me.

THE WEIGHT OF WINTER

This past week Topeka and the surrounding areas suffered a pretty bad ice storm (not quite the devastation in Oklahoma). As I drove around town I noticed how cool the trees looked as that were incased in ice, making them look like crystal sculptures. But what really took my attention was that those trees which had failed to drop all of their leaves before the ice storm weren't beautiful sculptures, but rather they looked overburdened and wilted; many of them with fallen branches and others that bend so low they were laying on the ground. The trees lacked the strength to hold them selves up and it was not because of the ice. For as you looked around the other trees seemed fine holding the weight of the ice that was frozen to their bare branches. Rather it was the presence of leaves and the added weight of ice that they collected which cause these trees to be unable to bare the load. So often we resist the times when God seems to be taking away from us the things we love the most, stripping us of those things that we think are so important. Jesus says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." (John 15:1 & 2) If we resist the pruning of the Lord, we too may end up caring a greater load than we can bear. For only the Lord knows what lies ahead and we may be headed for an ice storm for which we need to prepare by lightening the load in our lives.

Nearer, Draw Me Nearer

I read a blog by Carl a couple of days ago and something struck me that I never fully realized. Carl quoted the hymn "Nearer, Still Nearer" as I will do now

"Nearer, still nearer, close to Thy heart
Draw me, my Savior, so precious Thou art
Fold me, O fold me close to Thy breast
Shelter me safe in that haven of rest
Shelter me safe in that haven of rest"

What struck me was that the language used here is so backwards from what I hear both in my prayers and the prayers of those around me. So often I'm praying "Lord, come into my life. Draw close to me so that I may feel your presence." But it's the other way around in this song. So I looked through our church's songbook to discover that the same language used in "Nearer, Still Nearer" is found in many other songs as well.

"Nearer my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
E'en tho it be a cross that raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee!"
- "Nearer, My God, to Thee"

"Nearer the cross, my heart can say, I am coming nearer
Nearer the cross from day to day, I am coming nearer
Nearer the cross where Jesus died,
Nearer the fountain's crimson tide,
Nearer my Savior's wounded side,
I am coming nearer, I am coming nearer"
-"Nearer the Cross"

I've heard this lesson before, but never did I realize how backwards I was thinking about my nearness to the Lord and how that manifested it self in my prayers. I suspect my actions were affected too. I have heard a million times that when we feel abandoned that it was not the Lord who moved away but rather us who retreated from Him. But it's so much more than that! God already tore the down the curtain that separated me from Him (Matthew 27:50-51). He sent His Son not just as the ultimate sacrifice but to be the bridge that still creates a pathway between my Lord and I today! Even when we are feeling good about life and are walking along the narrow path it is never God who should draw near to us (He's already done that!), but rather us who are continually drawing near to Him. Even in the good times it is not Him who has moved or needs to move. The Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), and it is I who must change.

When I pray, "God come close to me" it is like me saying to a water fountain, "Hey I'm thirsty why don't you break off the wall and come over to me." Obviously if it did that it would be severing itself from the supply of water. But rather then only way to stay where I am and yet receive water is to have someone bring it to me. And Jesus did! He is the living water! (John 4:10) But he doesn't just bring me a cup, but invites me to get off my lazy bum and follow him back to the source (Revelation 7:17).

"Jesus, keep me near the cross: there a precious fountain,
Free to all, a healing stream, flows from Calv'ry's mountain!"