“For as the earth brings forth its sprouts and as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations” – Isaiah 61:10-11
I’ve been praying and longing to see Revival in the UK for many years now. Perhaps you’ve been praying for your nation too? Or perhaps you’ve been praying for years to see someone come to faith. If so, I want to encourage you today!
One morning, a few years back, I was talking to one of my daughters about how committed I am to praying for revival in this land. Just before rushing out of the door to school, she looked at me, a little perplexed and said something along the lines of:
“Mum, this world is so awful. I’m not sure that one person can make that much difference…”
(But more of that story later!)
When I inherited the garden in our current home, it was literally two strips of weedy, unyielding earth. The soil was full of stones. The ‘garden’ had not plant nor flower, just hundreds of very deep rooted weeds.
The only thing it did have, was potential…it was a blank canvass really.
So, determined to have a garden, I began. Digging, weeding, removing stones. It was pain-staking, back-busting! I tried adding sand into the heavy clay soil in order to improve the claggy, ‘stick-to-your-boots’ consistency. I bought bags of rich compost and literally poured them into the beds, digging and turning the earth again and again, to try and provide a more habitable environment for plants and flowers. The groundwork took time.
But eventually the condition of the soil improved.
Then came the long job of buying and trying – going to garden nurseries and coming home with car boots full of perennials and shrubs. I remember placing the plants in the soil – and frankly, being a bit underwhelmed. These puny little plants would just look so insignificant, so small in all that earth! They didn’t make much impact. They certainly didn’t look like the garden magazines I had been browsing through!
Pretty depressing!
Was all this hard work ever going to be worth it?
Fortunately for me, my mum’s garden is full of flowers! So much so, that she was able to give me clumps of Geranium and Sedum from her own beds. Every now and then she’d pop round with a tub full of Iris or Day Lilly – and we’d dot them around as fillers.
All of this activity went on for several years. Planting things. Trying things. Moving things. If I’ve learned one thing about gardening – it’s this: No pain, no gain.
But then suddenly…years down the line, you begin to see your garden taking shape. Suddenly, there’s colour and form. People start to notice: “Isn’t your garden looking lovely?” But best of all – younotice! One warm summer’s evening, you sit outside, sipping a mug of tea, realising that all your hard work is starting to pay off. And you smile…because somehow, the fact that it took time, years even, makes it all the more rewarding. I tended this garden! I kept going year after year, even though – to start off with – nothing much seemed to change.
Yes, it’s the same flower bed!
Looking back, all those years that I’ve spent tending my garden, have run parallel to the years that I’ve spent praying for this Nation. Isn’t God great? Don’t you just love the way He weaves the natural and the supernatural together to teach us things? What a prophetic picture lies within all of this toil!
Because the thing is…whatever you sow into a garden, you’ll eventually reap.
Put in a Climbing Rose and come July, you’ll have Climbing Roses! Plant a pot full of Daffodil and Tulip bulbs in September, and POP – there’s your first bit of early spring cheer! Fill your low wall with Geraniums, and hey presto – Geraniums it is!
Today I want to remind you of the wonderful principle that God has set in motion. Sowing and reaping.
“Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting. He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him!” – Psalm 126:5-6
I know that if you’ve sown seeds of prayer for your nation, or your loved one’s salvation – perhaps tears at times – then no matter how long, no matter how many years it takes, some day, one day…you will see your reward.
If you’ve been praying – particularly for revival or salvation – and you’re on the verge of giving up…please don’t! One fine day, when you least expect it, you’ll turn around and your garden will be filled with beautiful blooms! And what a wondrous reward it will be – the fruit of all your labours!
Can I tell you the rest of the story about my daughter? A few days later she came downstairs in the morning and said: “Oh by the way mum, I had a dream about you last night….”
“Go on,” I said, intrigued.
“You were trying to start a fire by rubbing sticks together,” she said. “At first nothing was happening. But you didn’t give up. Then all of a sudden, there was a spark, and then the whole thing just burst into flame!”
My mouth was almost agog as she added:
“And I think it’s to do with you praying!”
So today, here’s God’s message to you (and me): Keep going! Don’t you dare give up!
This morning, a well known image kept coming to mind. It was that picture of a half filled glass of water, and that all important question….is the glass half full or half empty?
What do you think?
Well, before I’d even had time to ponder the answer, I sensed God’s smiling response:
“That question is completely irrelevant in my Kingdom! When I fill a cup, it overflows!”
Ha! Isn’t that wonderful?!
You have anointed my head with oil, my cup overflows! – Psalm 23:5
There are no half measures with God! Nothing about Him is ever stingy or miserly or half hearted! Everything about Him is abundant and lavish and overflowing! What a joy!
I felt today that God wanted to remind me, and maybe some of you, of His absolute abundance! In Him there is no lack. He is great in might. He is awesome in power, He is abundant in loving-kindness! He really, really is a GREAT BIG GOD!
Feast your heart on a few of these ABUNDANT truths today – if necessary speak them out loud over your circumstances:
GREAT is the Lord and mighty in power. His understanding has no limit – Psalm 147:5
But You O Lord, are a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness – Psalm 86:15
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary and His understanding no one can fathom – Isaiah 40:28
Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and His ways are past finding out! – Romans 11:33
Your loving-kindness O God extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgements are like a great deep – Psalm 36:5-6
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us – Psalm 103:11-13
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness! – Lamentations 3:22-23
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His loving-kindness is everlasting – Psalm 118:1
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen – Ephesians 3:14-21
My four year old daughter Emily has an incredible imagination. She spends hours creating imaginary worlds, using little animal figures such as Playmobil and Sylvanian Families. She is also rather fond of a lovely set of Lion King characters that I found on ebay.
“Mum” she begs, “make Simba talk!”
So, somewhat reluctantly, I have to put on this really deep American voice and try to bring this inanimate, plastic Lion to life.
“Oh no!” I say, “There’s a big problem in the Pride-lands!” I pause…not really too sure where this is going.
Emily looks at me with wide eyes. She’s hanging on my every word and is desperate to find out what the problem is.
Shakily, I continue. “You see…the waterhole has dried up. And if we don’t get water soon… we’re going to die!”
Crikey. Should I be that morbid with a four year old?
Emily doesn’t seem to mind at all. She’s in the zone completely! So we spend the next half hour racking our brains to try and come up with a solution. And eventually we decide that the elephants are our best option. They can suck some water up (from somewhere or other – minor detail) with their trunks and fill the water hole back up. And all the while, of course, the evil Scar is trying to stop us at every turn.
For a moment, those plastic characters seem almost real. But pretty soon, they go back in the toy box.
No matter how convincing my Simba voice is, or how entertaining my story, those characters will never, ever be real. They’re just plastic. Even Emily knows that.
And then, in Genesis, i read this:
“Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” – Gen 2:7
Hang on a minute! Did you get that? I mean, forget about trying to animate plastic lions… God moulded a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and that pile of dust became a REAL PERSON! A living, breathing, blinking, yawning, walking, talking human being! It’s jaw-dropping! We can become so familiar with the creation scriptures, that we forget to marvel at them! No wonder the Psalmists say time and again “There is no one like the Lord our God!”
And then the really mind-blowing thing! Right at the outset of things, way back in Genesis, God was already revealing His plan of salvation. This was a foreshadowing of what was to come. The same thing happens when we are born again. God takes a person who is dead in their trespasses and sins – and breathes His very life into their spirit, so that they become a LIVING BEING!
Dead. Stone cold on a slab. No heartbeat. Like a pile of dust. We were all dust-men! But then suddenly the breath of the Holy One began to rush into the hollow caverns of that dead old soul and BOOM! Suddenly we have a pulse! We’re alive!
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love, with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made is ALIVE together with Christ! – Ephesians 2: 4-5
“Mum, did you remember to pay for my school trip?”
“Did you remember there’s a meeting this evening?”
“Don’t forget your P.E. Kit!”
“I must remember to take those library books back on Tuesday.”
“Don’t forget your packed lunch bag!”
Sound familiar?
Just last week, I fell prey to absent-mindedness on a number of occasions! On Monday I filled in some important forms for my daughter’s new school. I put them by the front door so that I wouldn’t forget them the next day…and then on Tuesday, I managed to leave the house without them! On Wednesday, I popped into the shop and bought a few groceries…but came home without the milk. On Friday, I took my car into the garage, walked all the way back home, only to discover that I’d forgotten to take my door key off the car key-ring.
You know that old saying: “You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on”…well, that pretty much sums me up!
And here we are again, heading towards November – the month of remembrance. Soon we’ll be buying red poppies and taking part in two minute silences. Lest we forget…
A few days ago, I stumbled across an interesting verse in the book of Judges:
“The sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of God, and forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.” (Judges 3: 7)
Hang on a minute…back up the truck….I thought doing evil in the sight of God would entail murder or betrayal or deepest, darkest deception. What did the sons of Israel do that was so offensive to God? They forgot Him.
God has always wanted a people who will love Him and serve Him with wholehearted devotion. And the truth is, He’s worthy of nothing less.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind…”
But the Sons of Israel ‘forgot’ Him. They forgot the God who had brought them up out of Egypt. Split open the Red Sea so they could walk though on dry land. Provided Manna from heaven and water from a rock. Who knows what distractions may have lured their affections away? But I would hazard a guess that it was a gradual slide. Perhaps they gradually stopped talking about Him quite so often – stopped remembering the miracles. Perhaps they stopped being thankful. Perhaps they got too busy trying to pay the bills. But somehow, their hearts drifted away from their first love. And it wasn’t long before they were serving Baal and Asheroth – worshipping idols. How tragic.
The word ‘remember’ comes from the Latin root ‘mem’, which means ‘call to mind’ or ‘be mindful of’. So many words that we use in our everyday language stem from this root: Memento, memoir, memorandum, memorabilia. All of these things are designed to prompt our memory. They remind us of important things, or preserve special memories. But what can we do to remind ourselves of the One who is more important than any other treasure?
David had the right idea – In Psalm 103, we see an example of him “calling to mind” the goodness of the Lord:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits,
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with loving-kindness and compassion,
Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.”
It seems to me that remembering the Lord is not some hit and miss thing, like it so often is with things like milk and car keys. We must choose to remember. We need to keep calling to mind the goodness of our God. We need to constantly remind ourselves of His past mercies and all of His faithfulness. It’s a deliberate thing.
Jesus made this clear to us on the night before he died.
And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them saying: “this is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19).
If there’s only one truth that we choose to remember in this lifetime, surely it should be this one: That Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High God, laid down His life, so that we might live. Let’s never forget.
“The heavens are telling the glory of God and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they reveal knowledge.” Psalm 19v1-2
We don’t get the best views of the night sky in South London. But I remember camping out in the countryside as a child…It was a completely different story! All I wanted to do was fling my head back and marvel! These days, satellite images allow us to get a glimpse of galaxies far, far away. They bring us back evidence of things unseen! Weird and wonderful nebulas that look like gigantic eyes in the sky. Pictures of the Whirlpool Galaxy, which looks as though someone just opened a pot of glitter whilst waltzing through the universe! We learn about stars which are bigger than the sun. We are told mind-bending facts about how many trillions of light years away these spinning orbs hang out. Just getting my head around the idea that a trillion is equal to a million millions is baffling enough!
The enormity of the universe is completely staggering! Our planet is but a miniscule blue dot in the vastness. But in one little sentence, Genesis tells us how God created the sun and the moon – and then adds, (as though it’s just an afterthought), “He also made the stars!” Countless billions of them!
“He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name” (Psalm 147v4).
He knows each one by name? Wow!
“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth”! (Psalm 33v6). It’s like He just breathed them out! It leaves me speechless! What kind of God is this?!
Just think for a a moment about a solar eclipse…a total solar eclipse takes place in the somewhat rare occurrence that the moon travels directly in the path of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Momentarily, the moon appears to completely cover the sun, blotting out its light, as though it were night time! A few days ago me and the kids watched a video clip of a solar eclipse. It was breath-taking. In four or five minutes, the sun was slowly but surely obscured. Then came a few moments of complete blackness, and then seconds later, an ethereal corona appeared like a milky mist around the sun – at which point, my daughter’s nine year old friend cried out: “Wow – I think that’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!” A fitting response, I thought! You could hear people on the video clip whooping with delight and amazement, yet many of them probably completely missing the point that SOMEBODY MADE THAT HAPPEN!
In Psalm 8 David says, “When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained…” One of the meanings of the word ordained is “set in place!” Think about that for a moment. God placed the sun and the moon in their place. It was not some random accident! When you think of it like this, a solar eclipse is nothing short of miraculous! The sun and the moon lining up like that in such a precise way is jaw-droppingly awesome, and really ought to bring us to our knees, like David. Creation is a living, talking testimony of the sheer power and wisdom of our God. The heavens do indeed preach us a sermon about the brilliance of their Creator. Every night the stars are saying something – can you hear them -shouting out loud to all who will listen? They are crying out: “Isn’t He Majestic? Isn’t He glorious?! Isn’t He magnificent? If you ever need reminding of the power and breathtaking wisdom of God, then why not take a leaf out of David’s Psalm Book, and just look up! The heavens are creation’s great signposts – they point us towards the One who put them there! How majestic is His name!
Click the link below to enjoy a wonderful song of worship.
“Yet You O Lord are our Father. We are the clay and You are our Potter, we are all the work of Your hands.”
Isaiah 64 v 8
I was a transfixed ten year old girl, watching a Potter at work. A lump of clay, grey-brown and formless, growing, expanding, springing up here, being stretched out there. Rounded to perfection. A rim added with a pinch of fingers. Holes cut out here. A spout added there. A long clay sausage curved into an elegant loopy handle – a teapot! So perfect, appearing like magic at the touch of the potter’s skillful hands.
This week, at our lady’s group, a friend asked for prayer. She is going through a storm. Life is hard. Times are tough. As we prayed for her, suddenly I found myself picturing a Potter and some clay.
And then I realised something. A Potter knows exactly how much pressure to apply to the clay in order to create a desired shape.
Sometimes God allows situations to press against us. Sometimes His hand seems firm upon our hearts. Sometimes it seems that the pressure is too much and we’re going to crack. But know this: When God’s touch seems firm and heavy upon us, when the pressures of life crowd in, that’s when He’s shaping us the most. The more pressure He applies, the more we are being moulded and transformed into His likeness and into all that He plans for us to be. He knows what He is making. He sees the end result. He has something great in mind. It may not be finished yet. What He is making may remain a bit of a mystery to us. But one thing’s for sure – He is the Potter, and He is in complete control. He has not taken His hand off us. He’s a Master Craftsman. If you’re feeling the pressure today, if you’re feeling like your life is spinning out of control, take heart and trust Him! You’re probably being shaped into something beautiful.
Monday morning began at 3:45a.m for me! I had been in the middle of a perfectly blissful sleep, when suddenly the baby awoke. Oh no, I groaned…here we go again! First she wanted to snuggle. Then she needed her nappy changed. Then she wanted some milk. Whilst waiting for the milk to cool, she spied the book box, and asked me to read her a story. Story read and milk now ready, I settled her back in her cot. Relieved that our night time escapade was over, I jumped back into bed and snuggled under the covers…but moments later, to my despair, she was moaning again, asking for another cuddle….In and out of bed went I – and in and out of the cot went Emily! Eventually after to-ing and fro-ing for about two hours, I finally dozed back off at about 5:55. Ironically, the alarm was set for 6:15! Don’t you just hate it when that happens?
Not a great start to a new week. I got up, made myself a cup of tea and sat down to contemplate the day ahead. My head began to spin a little, as I contemplated my enormous to-do list. I thought about the home-school lessons that I didn’t have time to plan over the weekend. I thought about the mountainous pile of washing that was spilling out of the laundry basket. I thought about the four extra people that were eating with us that evening and the shopping that needed to be done. I thought about the numerous piles of clothes that needed to be sorted through and re-homed following our recent loft conversion. I needed to order some new curtains and blinds. I needed to organise a venue for Emily’s forthcoming birthday party, plus call the hairdresser and book haircuts for Grace and I, oh and I was supposed to find a babysitter for the weekend…the list just seemed to go on and on.
I had two options. Run around like a mad woman trying to get everything done. Or run to God.
I knew from bitter experience that I needed to pray, or there would be trouble ahead. I didn’t have a clue where to start. I didn’t have enough time – or patience. I didn’t have enough energy. I certainly didn’t have enough sleep! As I faced the day, I felt completely stumped. It all seemed too overwhelming. Suddenly I remembered the story of Elisha and the widow who was in debt. She was a lot like me. She didn’t have nearly enough. Creditors were banging on her door. They were threatening to take her sons into slavery if she didn’t settle up soon. But there was no way she could pay. She was desperate for someone to help her.
So she called for Elisha, the prophet. Elisha said to her:
How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
And the widow responded truthfully, “Your servant has nothing there at all, except a little oil”.
I’m sure you know the rest of the story. It’s a story of miraculous provision. Elisha tells the woman to go and get a load of empty pots from her neighbours. Then he tells her to go into her house, close the door, and start pouring out the little bit of oil that she has into the empty pots. And so she does. To her amazement, she has enough to fill the first pot. And then another. And again another. To her surprise and wonder, the oil just keeps on flowing! Golden, oozing, glorious provision, poured straight out from heaven! The oil doesn’t run out until every pot is filled to the brim! Now she has enough to sell! And enough to pay her debts
Perhaps ‘not having enough’ isn’t such a bad place to be after all…because it’s only in times of lack that we really lean on God. I knew as I faced the day on Monday morning, that even if I tried my very best try, there was absolutely no way I was going to get though the day, without some serious help from on High. I needed God to show up. I needed His grace. I needed His strength! I needed Him to download a shed-load of patience…(and I needed it fast!)
2 Corinthians 12:9 tells us that “God’s power is made perfect in our weakness!”
What an amazing verse for the days when you are almost running on empty. Our weaknesses are really great big opportunities in disguise! Opportunities for God to show up! Opportunities for His miraculous provision. He is the God who loves to take the little that we have and multiply it. If the only thing you can offer God is a lil’ old jug of oil, He can make it overflow! If all you have in your lunch box is a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, God can feed an army! If the only thing you have, is a miniscule grain of faith, God can use it to move mountains! If all you have left is a heart that says “yes” then you’re just the person God is looking for! If you don’t have enough today – don’t worry! God has plenty! All you need to do is ask Him. His grace is sufficient. His power is made perfect in weakness. Just give God your best and He’ll take care of the rest!
P.S…Want to know what happened after I prayed on Monday morning? At 9am, there was a knock at the door. It was a lovely friend from church who is a teacher. She said that I had been on her heart.. and she wanted to help. She came armed with Maths text books for my children, and a fun word game. And she offered to help me create a bank of fun activities for Home-School! Tears sprang into my eyes as I realized that God was sending His miraculous provision in the form of a thoughtful friend. Later that day, there was another knock at the door. It was my mum, sleeves rolled up, ready to help me sort out that pile of clothes and toys. She spent three hours helping me get things organized and took two loads of laundry off my hands! Now I have tidy bedrooms and for the first time this year, I can actually close my laundry basket! How amazing is our God!!
All of us have similar tales to tell. Why don’t you share with me your stories of God’s miraculous help from on High – I’d love to hear from you.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, therefore we will not fear though the earth should change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea.”
If there’s one thing we can be certain of, it’s that nothing stays the same forever. July always seems to be a season of shifts and changes – a time of goodbyes and new beginnings, especially for children. Changing classes. Changing schools. Leaving Primary School. Leaving school forever. This world is ever moving – ever changing. Who can stop the hands of time from turning?
Only this week, my daughter Grace was faced with this fact when some of her older friends graduated from one our church youth clubs. She felt a sudden pang of sadness as she was suddenly faced with a stark reality – change is unstoppable, and that sometimes, the people we care deeply about, move on.
“Though the earth should change, and though the mountains should slip into the heart of the sea“.
I used to think this verse was metaphoric. But recently I watched a David Attenborough Documentary called Frozen Planet. It showed how climate change is starting to affect our world. Great mountains of ice in the Polar Ice-Cap regions are literally melting and slipping into the sea as we speak.
Climate change. Floods, earthquakes, land-slides. Sometimes I get nervous just turning on the news! The world seems to be changing so quickly. Just this week we have all been rocked by news of the tragic plane crash over the Ukraine. There is unrest all around the world, with attention at the moment on Israel and Iraq. Distressing events unfolding day after day. Peoples lives suddenly cut short in an instant. Such events can strike our hearts with fear and terror.
But…take heart! “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in times of trouble”. A refuge is a place of shelter, a fortified tower, a safe haven.
“The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and are safe“. Prov 18:10
Where do we run to when change comes a’calling and our hearts faint within us? We run to God our rock – the only place of stability in an unstable world. He is a very present help in times of trouble. This verse makes me smile. You would think that someone could either be present or not present, wouldn’t you? But God is VERY present! To me that says that He isn’t just a by-stander. He isn’t just an eye-witness standing in the wings. He is not distant, detached, standing idly by, watching our lives play out. He is involved!
I sent this verse to my lovely cousin Michael this morning, who in the last few days was suddenly faced with enormous change in the shape of a triple heart bypass operation. I could almost picture God in the operating theatre with His sleeves rolled up! There is nowhere we can go to escape His presence! Even when we are under the Surgeon’s knife, God is with us!
God is also with my husband’s family who are currently facing the enormous change of emigrating to Texas. They are currently in the process of packing up their whole life in boxes. Saying goodbye to family, friends and loved ones and experiencing the wrench of leaving schools and home and church, even country, and having to start life “from scratch.” Oh how painful change can be!
And I know that He will be with you too. Whatever change you are facing right now – whether it’s having a baby, moving school, moving house – or something as tragic as the sudden loss of a loved one. Whether you are the one moving on, or the one being left behind. Take heart! Do not fear! Though the earth should change and the mountains should slip into the heart of the sea, God is in control. He is not removed from your situation. He is not absent. He is present. And not just present, VERY present. ‘Very’ is a word of emphasis. It underlines! It’s written in bold and italics!
Whatever ‘trouble’ you may find yourself in today, He is with you! He is the same God that was with Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in the fiery furnace. He was with Daniel in the Lion’s Den. He was with Moses and the Israelites when they were faced with the red sea in front of them and the Egyptian Armies behind. He is the same God that was with David when he stood toe to toe with a nine foot giant. And He will be with you too. When we remember His awesome works, and remember His past mercies, we know that we need not fear!
If you are in a season of change, or troubled over world events, run to the Rock today. He is a shelter, a safe-haven, and a firm foundation that cannot be shaken, no matter what your changes or shifting circumstances may be. Even if the earth should change, and the mountains should slip into the very heart of the sea – you need not fear. He has got you in the palm of His hand. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever.
Twice this week, I have been reminded of the old adage: “No pain, no gain!” It seems to me that growth seldom comes about without a considerable amount of toil.
My first reminder came on Wednesday, when we had to clear out the loft. You see, our house is about to grow! Well not literally. Over the next few weeks, all of our unused roof space will be cleverly converted into two extra bedrooms and a bathroom. It will be a wonderful blessing when the work is all completed, but home renovations certainly come with their own set of peculiar challenges…
Allow me to elaborate. The entire contents of our loft is now piled up precariously in various places around the house! Not a nook or a cranny has escaped! Christmas trees in bulky boxes are stuffed in corners. Seldom used sleeping bags and travel cases now adorn the top of my wardrobe. Dusty old college books are stacked up in the girl’s room, along with those random photos that I don’t really know why I kept. A box of video tapes that my kids used to watch over and over again is fast becoming a trip hazard in the hallway. My son’s beloved wooden train set – all 380 pieces of it – now adds to the clutter in his already overcramped bedroom! Don’t we humans gather a lot of ‘stuff’? Suddenly I am acutely aware of the reason why we needed a loft in the first place!
And just when we thought we’d pulled out the last box of junk from the roof, my husband made a surprise discovery! There in the corner of the loft, up in the rafters, was a bee’s nest! Didn’t see that one coming! Three phone calls and fifty quid later, the bees nest was carried out of the house in a very buzzy cardboard box, by a man clad in a bright blue boiler suit and a most curious netted hat, followed – hot on his heels – by a pack of fascinated children!
So the first thing I’ve learnt is this: if you want to see growth, you are going to have to sort through all of your extraneous clutter! You might uncover a hornets nest, and you might just find the contents of your life are subject to a bit of ‘rearranging’! Ouch!
My second reminder came today – whilst I was doing some gardening. I had decided to tackle a long-neglected patch in my ‘flower bed’. I hesitate to call it a flower bed, because in actual fact, it seemed to have merged with the rest of the lawn! It had enough grass growing through it to start a small meadow! The clay soil, untouched for over a year, had become hard and compact. It took a considerable amount of force to plunge my fork deep enough into the soil to get beneath the stubborn roots of all the unwanted grass and weeds. It involved an awful lot of bending down, hands in the dirt, removing stones, picking out dead stems and roots. I had to painstakingly avoid pulling up a crop of lilies along with the unwanted grass. And just to add to the challenge, this particular section of the flower bed, has a rather over-zealous climbing rose at the back of the border – beautiful, but deadly! It seemed to have sprouted dozens of spiteful little thorny shoots, which lay hidden in the undergrowth, just waiting for me to spike myself on!
There seemed to be only one approach to this task: inch by inch! There were no short cuts. This was going to take time, effort and energy. You see, there’s so much more to creating a beautiful garden than simply planting flowers! That’s the easy part. As any true gardener knows, it’s the preparation – the groundwork – that really counts.
As I was breaking up that hard, unyielding soil, I couldn’t help but reflect on the wonderful ways that God has dealt with me over the years. Breaking up the “fallow ground” – turning over the hard, unyielding, unfruitful places in my heart. As I removed stones and bits of rubble, I couldn’t help but think of how God has “removed my heart of stone, and given me a heart of flesh.” As I heard the satisfying ‘pop’ of weeds being torn out of the earth, it reminded me of the way He has lovingly and patiently rooted out some of those stubborn sins that threatened to overwhelm me. As I pruned back that over-eager climbing rose, I couldn’t help but think of the way He sometimes has to prune back the parts of us that aren’t bearing fruit – the straggling, unruly stems that spoil shape and form, weighing us down, zapping us of energy.
The second thing I learned about growth, is this: it requires dedication, time and commitment. And sometimes it can be a little uncomfortable. If you want to see growth, you are going to need to dig deep. It may require lots of time spent on your knees, crying out to the one who is able to get to the root of those stubborn weeds that threaten to take over! It may involve the pain of pruning, of cutting back those things that are unnecessary. You see, there will never be growth without toil. There will never be new life without labour. Though there be pain in the night, joy will surely come with the morning.
Is growth then, really worth all the effort? Isn’t it easier just to remain within the confines of all that is safe and secure? Isn’t it easier just to put your feet up and leave well alone. Well I suppose we have to ask ourselves a few difficult questions. Do we want to stay within our current limitations? Do we want to let fear keep us within our comfort zones? Do we want to live in our cramped and cluttered houses with our hoard of hard-to-let-go-of ‘stuff’, or do we want to be stretched for better use. Do we want to have lives full of colourful and vibrant blooms, or remain a hard, stony, unfruitful patch of earth? Do we trust the Master Craftsman to “enlarge our borders and stretch out our tent-pegs”? Do we trust the Master Gardener to make us into a “well-watered garden?”
Praise God that there was once a Man who bore the thorns and went through unimaginable toil in order to make me His own. He humbled Himself and bowed low to remove the stones, the rubble and the weeds from my hard, unyielding heart – all because He loved me too much to leave me as I was – all because He wanted to make me into a fruitful vineyard, a planting of the Lord. I wonder if you will join me today, in offering up your heart to all of God’s workmanship – no matter how costly or painful – in order that we might grow into all that He wants us to be.
EVERYDAY ENCOUNTERS 