Dog-eared Pages

“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

                                -- Chuck Swindoll
                                    Author, pastor, teacher

Chain-Saw Chronicles

We were warned.   The utility company was sending out arborists to trim trees near the overhead electric lines up and down the streets of our town.  The word "arborist" had a gentle and nurturing ring to it, and I imagined tree lovers gently clipping off dead branches which threaten the lines in occasional windstorms.

We traveled out of town for a few days. In our absence, it appeared that the landscaping version of the Texas Chain-Saw Massacre had been filmed.  The impact of this so-called pruning left behind dismembered trees, awkward and absurd.  Our backyard neighbor's trees which helped disguise the unsightly utility poles -- and whose foliage actually protected those lines from strong winds -- were viciously hacked away.  What survived now appears to be Dr. Seuss trees on life-support.

Any tree, limb or twig within at least ten feet of the wires was brutally amputated.  From what remained, it would have been more merciful to have removed the trees entirely. Yesterday, I observed some of the men working.  Nothing was sacred.

The converted railway path where I run looks as if a tornado has spent out its rage, maiming every tree in its path with brute force.  Even last week, a variety of trees had bent their limbs lovingly over the trail, like black lace embellishing the sky.   No more.  The trees overhead have been ruthlessly scalped.  No longer a welcoming retreat, the path appears once again as just a rough strand of dirt and gravel, an unsightly abandoned right of way alongside the railroad tracks.

And I thought with sadness as I ran, there is no need to be so harsh.

With trees.  And children.  And spouses. And everyone else around us.

Yes, there are times of teaching and training, times of truth and change of direction, even times of correcting injustice. But we go at it like bulls in a china shop, leaving behind destruction and harsh words still razor sharp decades later. Years ago, I heard a young parent's paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13.1:  "If I have perfectly obedient children, but have not love, I am only a tyrant."

Do I approach relationships and stressful situations with healing in mind?  "There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing."  Proverbs 12.17

Harshness never gets the point across, but leaves a painful blight too huge to be ignored, and the "lesson" is somehow lost in the fray.  As I run, the wounded trees remind me of what harshness can do, the ugliness that remains, and words that I regret.

I often think about two of our girls' teachers years ago who employed what I called "velvet over steel."  One taught first-graders, the other directed 400 junior high choir students.  These rare women achieved great order in their classrooms without raised voices, or crushed spirits, or empty threats.  Kindness prevailed.  And indeed, the children obeyed willingly and felt greatly loved.  Firm but loving.

Do my words leave behind encouragement or devastation?  Isn't there a more gracious way to say that?
And no reason at all to be so harsh.
 
Let your gentleness be evident to all.

                               Philipians 4. 5


But You, O LORD, are a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

                                       Psalm 86.15

It's Not About The Grout

More than twenty years ago in a house where we lived, it appeared the builder found a great bargain on white floor tile, and he paved an expanse that led from the front door, down a hallway and back into the kitchen.  It was nice-looking when it was clean.  But we had four small children in that season of life, need I say more.

I was down on my knees one day, not praying, but griping, while I scrubbed the vast stretches of dirty white grout in the heavily trafficked hallway.   Friends were coming to visit the next day.

I resented my work, knowing full well that NO ONE would even know what I had spent so much time doing.  This is such a waste of time.  There are so many other important things I could be doing this afternoon.

This is about the LAST thing I want to do.  This is not my gift.  This is not my degree or my training.  This is not even what I am good at.

And somehow in my grumbling, God inserted, "Would you do it for Me if I was coming?"

"Of course, LORD, gladly."

I set down the scrub brush for a minute, up to my elbows in humble pie.

"Truly, I say to you,
as you did it to
the least of these my brethren,
you did it to Me."

                   Matthew 25.40

We all have dirty grout in our lives, those things through which God equips us, hard things that God uses for great good in the lives of others.  It's not about the grout, but scrubbing through layers of built-up pride.  And perhaps, spending too little time on my knees before Him.  There is nothing that Christ cannot redeem.

What I do may never be noticed, what I do can be undone in ten minutes, but what God does through me --and in me --impacts in ways I am not old enough to understand.  I have only to be faithful to Him.   A blessing never bears a singular purpose.

It is not so much the task at hand, but the radical alteration of my heart He desires.

...it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went
        into the sanctuary of God...

                        Psalm 73. 16-17

      

In Whom There is Nothing Ordinary At All

Every day,
God transforms ordinary moments
     into something quite eternal.
Indeed, in Him,
        nothing is ordinary at all.
He redeems all things.
And each day  
                drips with significance.


Despise not the day of small things.

                      Zechariah 4.10

It is not just that spring will come, but God will bring it.

When we moved into our house in Memphis in the dead heat of an August summer, it was so hot and humid, the only visible movement came from ceiling fans.  The yard had been neglected for some time, and we knew from the onset there was a lot of outside work to do.  The backyard was dominated by an enormous overgrown bush of unknown origin, planted oddly enough, front and center, as if not to be ignored.  It was big, green, and ugly, and, well, someday, it was going to have to go.  As in any move, urgent changes must take a number and stand in line. The bush would have to wait.

Little did we know.

At the end of February, green shoots began emerging from the ground.  The trees budded.  And then, as in a spectacular theatrical event, the curtain went up, and overnight, spring arrived.  No place on earth does spring like Memphis, Tennessee.  There are no words invented in all the world to describe its beauty.

And that ugly bush in the backyard?  We witnessed before our eyes a spiritual transformation.  For weeks every year, it was covered with thousands of hot pink blossoms, as if dressing up in Easter finery.  We gained a new appreciation for azaleas, the homecoming queen of the South.  That which we could not fathom took us by surprise.

Where we live now in the northland, it is already the second day of April, and the grass is still brown, the trees still bare, and little patches of tired snow cling to corners of the driveway and patio. There is an abandoned sled, forlorn and homeless in the field next door.  We wait.  It is that time, a little late by our desires.  But the season is about to change.  And despite appearances, the trees and ground are more alive than ever, standing on the starting line, ready to burst forth into a full-color display, a thousand shades of newness that, every year, takes my breath away.

But it doesn't just happen.

God created seasons, so reliable, that we mark these times of annual change on our calendars and revolve our schedules around what He does every year.  And even those who don't believe in Him expect the seasons to change, each one distinguished from the others, one emerging from the next.  That what we take for granted is an event of the greatest complexity and divine design.  That we would know Him more.

It is not just that spring will come, but God will bring it. 


You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;
You have made summer and winter.

                           Psalm 74.17