Thank you, Father, for these tears that have carried me to the depth of your love. How could I have known your fullness without the emptiness, your acceptance without the rejection, your forgiveness without my failure, our togetherness without that dreadful loneliness. You have brought me to Gethsemane, and oh, the joy of finding you already there! Amen.
~Bonnie Barrows Thomas
For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
~ to all who are part of the Israel of G_d in Jeremiah 29
Oh beloved, this One who has so mightily saved us, has taken us through the only route that worked to do it. And for many of us, this route has been a really tough road.
Many of us were made to give up just about everything we had. And if we would not let go of it, He lovingly crushed it out of our hands. We were holding onto our fears and lusts and doubts and comforts and rage with such tenacity that the final blow He mercifully inflicted on us nearly killed us.
And then somehow, as we laid there bleeding in our sins. We looked up at Him with sincere eyes – took a deep breath – and screamed with our last bit of strength: “Help!” And He did. Oh did He! And as we come to our senses, we find that the final blow He laid across us actually did kill us.
However, the death did not result in our demise. Rather, the death merely freed us from a lonely and lone existence. And, in that horrible old man dying, we came to find that the seed we were – had within it – an abundance of fruit that could come forth no other way.
And then, as the growing tree He has brought forth from the seed begins to grow, He gives us everything we need to move into maturity.
He plants us in an orchard.
He protects us.
He nourishes us.
He waters us.
He provides light and warmth.
And He provides the winds of stress….
Yes, the strength of a tree is not only in the flow of the sap. Rather, it is the sap moving in the channels made strong by the stresses of wind and winter and rain and drought. We come to find that the fears and lusts and doubts and comforts and rage He saved us from will always attempt to worm their way back into our lives. And through this, we come to see that G_d is really good (as the Master Gardener) at digging out the worms and maggots that would infect the roots and wood and fruit He is bringing forth through us.
We also find though, that this same Master Gardener will allow some of the things that used to frighten us, or peak our desires, or make us doubt, to come near to us as a test. As a preacher said, “God allows (or even provokes) in His providence what He could easily prevent by His power.”
Here again is a however… He does not test us to make us fail. No, rather He allows the testing to prove in us – and to us – the work He is accomplishing. These tough things we face in life after His victory over us, and our continuation in victory over sin, are signs of His continued vigilance to tend to us and grow us fully into His likeness.
So beloved, are you facing the stresses of life? Are you feeling the winds and pressure against the limbs now holding the fruits of His labor in your life? Yes?
Good!
