Surprise

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, God comes up with something unexpected… simply because he wants to.

     My bride and I thought the cherry tree was done for. We didn’t get a crop this year; most of the fruit fell to the ground while it was still green. And despite the “scare tape,” the birds managed to pick off most of what did ripen. And then the leaves fell off – about two months ago. We plan to give the tree a righteous pruning come winter, and hope for better results in ’25.

     We don’t need the cherry crop: it is neither crucial income nor sustenance. When Kay loads those tart cherries into a pie crust, the outcome is wonderful, for sure – put on an extra pot of coffee, we’re going to be here a while – but still, a luxury, not a necessity. I stopped grieving over the cherries and moved on to other issues a while back. Leave weeping to the willows.  

     One thing that has stuck with me, though, is the drought we’ve been in. Money crops are suffering; farmers and their families will suffer too. I was on the back porch early Wednesday morning, asking Jesus why we’re having this exceptionally dry weather. He upholds the universe by the word of his power (see Hebrews 1:3); a couple inches of rain wouldn’t be too much to ask.

     While I was praying, movement caught my eye toward the north end of the yard: a hummingbird was flitting around the cherry tree. Stupid bird, you’re supposed to be headed south soon, and here you are trying to draw nectar from a tree that has none. In a moment, another hummingbird came along. They must really be desperate. I went on praying, and gave the birds up to failed instincts.

     But the birds kept at it. The movement, now somewhat of a nuisance, kept drawing my attention. On one glance I finally spotted a few patches of green where green hadn’t been, and a few flecks of white that were out of place. The cherry tree was blooming. As Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight” (Genesis 3:3), and I went for a closer look. The tree had a few dozen waxy, June-fresh leaves and maybe fifteen to twenty blossoms, all in one patch. Not enough for a cherry crop, but enough to get a couple hummingbirds started on a long migration.

     Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,

    your faithfulness to the clouds.
    Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
    your judgments are like the great deep;
    man and beast you save, O Lord.

    How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
    The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
    They feast on the abundance of your house,
    and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
    For with you is the fountain of life;
    in your light do we see light (Psalm 36:5-9)

     I don’t generally think of hummingbirds as “beasts,” but they and “the children of mankind” share a common reality: God saves; the Lord pours out his steadfast love; he gives them, all of them, drink from the river of his delights.

     Meteorologically, we are in a dry season. But the river of delights flows always. The fountain of life springs fresh. The steadfast love of our Father encompasses the heavens and the deeps and the mountains and the hummingbirds.

 Surprise!

 

 Grace and Peace (and water for your souls),

 

John  

O My Soul

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     What do people usually do or say when they catch you talking to yourself? Do they chuckle, or make circular motions with a finger near the head? (“Watch out: somebody’s done gone looney-tunes!”) Do they show some measure of pity, as for a puppy with a thorn in its paw? The reactions vary, but invariably, we don’t like to be caught talking to ourselves.

     Which is why I’m going to encourage us to talk to ourselves, sort of, on purpose:

 Bless the Lord, O my soul,

    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's…

Bless the Lord, O my soul! (Psalm 103:1-5, 22)

     Who wrote this Psalm? That’s easy: it’s attributed to David, the shepherd king. About 49 others have his name in the superscription as well. Here’s the question that’s not so easy: Who’s he talking to?

     David, like all of us, had relationships with a wide variety of people. Some were counting on his continued success; others wanted nothing more than to see him impaled on a long pole and eaten by crows. Navigating those relationships, we know, can be tricky – don’t want to mix those up. Is there a faithful, steady source of good counsel?

     David was one of the few Old Testament people who understood anything about the companionship of the Holy Spirit. And among those to whom the Spirit had been granted for a certain task, David was perhaps the only one with a clue that the Spirit’s companionship was meant to be a lifelong, even eternal, blessing. He was, in this respect, the prototype of the present-age Christian. He, like Christians now, had a perspective that is unavailable to anyone who does not yet have the Holy Spirit dwelling within. So yeah, he was talking to himself, but it’s okay: he was acting on the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

     Now that we know who did the prompting, it’s oh-so-important to see what the Spirit prompted our ancestor-in-the-faith to speak to his soul. Give a big ol’ WooHoo, precisely because the Spirit did NOT prompt David to say to his soul, “Soul, you’re so clever, and good-looking too. We killed the lion and the bear. And don’t forget the smelly old giant – off with his head! You’re rocking it, soul. Ain’t nobody can stand in our way.”

     Give the biggest WooHoo ever, precisely because the Spirit prompted David to shout out the praises of the only awesome God: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!” Bless – from the Hebrew word barak (baw-rak’), the primitive root of which means “to kneel,” as in adoration. Bless the Lord; speak favorably of him; adore him. I’m so glad barak is a verb, an action word – something happens, something tangible and measurable, because of barak.

     Best of all, the prompting of the Spirit to bless the Lord is founded on at least a bajillion reasons to adore him. Here are a few:

The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
    his acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
    nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
    nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
    he remembers that we are dust (verses 6-14).

     The soul – even the regenerated soul of the believer – gets bogged down. The poet William Wordsworh wrote, “The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers…” (Maybe he was having one of those bogged-down days way back in 1807.) Each day has the potential to be a bogged-down day. Just too much. No discernable way out. Thankfully, each day also presents the option to adore the lover of our souls. The soul was never designed to be self-sustaining. The soul was designed to be blessed and refreshed by blessing the Lord.

     Go ahead, sister; go ahead, brother – talk to yourself, at the Holy Spirit’s prompting. He is already “interced(ing) for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). And he “intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (verse 27). If some of those groanings were to turn into words, I wouldn’t be surprised if they sounded much like what David said in Psalm 103: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Through the Spirit, the believer has the ability to stand apart from the overwhelm-ed-ness, to get out of the torrent, and gain solid footing.

     I saw a TV commercial lately for a medication that helps people who’ve had a heart attack not have another one. The scene has a woman doing an interview with a production crew, along with an animated heart – her own – on the couch beside her. It’s a two-party conversation, the woman and her heart. Thankfully, the heart’s voice is also the woman’s. Freaky if it wasn’t, huh? I figure, if a TV production crew can give it a serious effort, why not us? And if somebody catches you encouraging your soul, maybe that’d be a great time to explain how you were doing it just like God’s people have been doing it for thousands of years.

  Grace and Peace (through blessing God),

 

John