Gardening

Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there.
~Thomas Fuller, 1732

The youngest children get the short end of the stick don't they? When Jordan [now 15] was little, one of her favorite things was to meander through the garden eating a snow pea, a tomato, or a cucumber. The strawberries & dewberries were her favorites...talk about fresh! Jacob has been cheated. He is 7 and knows almost nothing of a garden (but he knows every MarioKart course by name)...We have officially been 'too busy' to plant, tend, and harvest. Oh, we have the yearly Tomato vines, but that's about all. I talk about it every year, I think about it every year, but you know, there is (home)school, volleyball, soccer, girl scout cookie sales, church fellowships, meetings, Iron Chef, and about a billion other things claiming a portion of our attention. So yesterday, once again the soil was torn asunder by shovel and rake...and we will have a garden.

Gardens give such great opportunities to learn about God and life (I know, I know, so do sports, girl scouts & even TV occasionally...yada, yada, yada). Simple, profound lessons. You plant and don't harvest until many weeks, or months later...what a shock in our TIVO'd, microwaved, buy-now & pay-later world! Food you grow just tastes better. Participating in life instead of watching it on YouTube. Which is the "business end" of a shovel. You can grow a lot of food in a small area, but don't crowd the plants too much, they need their space. Even with meticulous attention and care, some of it dies anyway. Mother Nature is mean. Chicken poop, which stinks & is disgusting to us is a delicacy to veggies...hmmm. There are good bugs and bad bugs. It's not so hot at 6:30am and a sunrise is really cool to see occasionally. Sometimes the very thing we do to help, hurts. Mistakes. Weeds are persistent little vexations. It's really ok with mom for me to get dirty. Whistle while you work. Even with neglect some of it lives. Mother nature is kind. There is a difference in an herb and a weed [ask Cari for that story...], dirt doesn't taste good, but produces things which do. The same soil will grow fruit or weeds either one, plant one or the other will grow. Without water, even the healthiest plants will die. Nature hates bare ground and will try to cover it with something so use lots of mulch and you'll cut your gardening work by 70%...Patience, Tolerance, Discretion, Non-Judgmentalism, Attitude, Diligence, Compassion (remember Jonah's vine?), Mistakes, Vigilance, Work-ethic, Death, Attentiveness, Wisdom...

So, our plan is simple and the garden small (roughly 30x30). Turn the soil with shovel & rake (no tillers allowed) into planting beds separated by walking paths. We have what they call 'blackland' which is heavy, black clay (none of the beautiful loam you see on HGTV) so we'll need to mix in compost & rotting organic matter. We will lay soaker hoses in the plant beds and cover that with about 12 - 18 inches of hay mulch (thanks Steve & Ahnna!) We will lean toward the organic side but I'm not too much of a hippie to use a bit of Miracle-Grow where I deem it appropriate (I also occasionally take vitamins myself).

I intend to share some of these lessons with my children this year in our garden and see what we can grow out there besides plants...stay tuned.

Secrets

God's ways are not our ways. Never have been, never will. And often I realize that my natural inclination is directly opposed to God's wisdom. I sorrow over the death of a godly christian and rejoice at the death of a despot. Whereas God "has no pleasure in the death of the wicked" but the death of a saint is "precious in His sight". It seems to me that to "lose my life" would not save it, and that the servant of all is surely not the greatest of all. No, God's ways are not my ways. There is one particular thing I noticed today that is opposite my natural tendency and I wonder if you are the same way. Secrets. What secrets do you keep and which ones don't you keep? Here is God's take on secrets we should keep:

...when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly...But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Matthew 6:3-4

And His take on secrets we shouldn't keep:

He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy...Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. Proverbs 28:13; James 5:16

Like I said, Backward. Am I the only one, or is it natural to think we are best served to keep our sins secret? God says otherwise. And don't we really want our righteousness, our good deeds, our devotion to God to slip out, not in a big braggy way, but...you know...just so people will know...???

Maybe this week you could join with me in determining to keep the right secrets and not the wrong ones. Find a fellow christian who you can openly confess a secret sin to. Then, do a good deed for someone in complete secret, then secretly go to the Lord in prayer and thank Him for your forgiveness and your reward which will be great!

Good Bones

My sister just bought a house. It is a neat house, on two wooded acres with a pond...but quirky to say the least. The previous owner was an antique dealer so the house is filled with antique doors, knobs, lighting fixtures, leaded glass windows, etc...as I said, neat. The quirkiness is that none of it matches. A metal light fixture from the 30's & a porcelain one from the 60's. A leaded glass window with a striped pickle next to an Anderson casement bay window. She has assured me [and herself I think] though that the house "has good bones". That got me to thinking about bones. Do you have good bones? I believe I do...now. The thing about bones is that no-one can see them [unless you've been dead a while or are seriously injured] so you can dress up the outside and be hiding rotten or diseased bones on the inside. So, what causes bad bones? Lets' listen to King David, who knew a thing or two about bone rot.

There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin. Psalm 38:3

Why did he say there was no health in his bones? Because of his sin. We all know about David's notorious sin, but don't forget that we know because God told us. If you lived during David's lifetime, you likely would have had no idea [unless you were Joab]. Do you have sin, hidden sin, that eats at your spiritual bones like termites on a floor joist?

For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. Psalm 31:10

What a description of guilt and regret eating away at the structure of a man who outwardly was a man's man. A king to be respected and feared. There was no joy in the eyes of that smiling man. His sighs were heavy, his energy, his zest for life, was drained out like forgotten headlights drain a battery. And, he says, "my bones waste away".

When I kept silence, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. Psalm 32:3

He was groaning inwardly and it was making his bones old. Can you relate? The weight that just never seems to go away? How can you bring back health to your bones? Notice what David identifies as a cause here. "When I kept silence"...We all commit sin, we will never escape that. What we can refuse to do though, is to keep silent. This secrecy is Satan's trick. If you keep it secret, if you keep your sin hidden beneath the sheetrock, paint, & wall paper, behind the couch or the entertainment center of your life, it will rot your bones.

I think the new house has great potential to be something special someday, with lots of work. Because visible, quirky, ugly and even serious problems can be fixed...if you have good bones.

Happy Birthday Jericha!

Bambi: My favorite Scary Movie

Do you remember how the movie Bambi ended? After the forest fire, Bambi stands watch over his new family. He stands with his father, the Great Prince, on a hill looking over what's left of the forest as it begins the process of renewal. Bambi, now a young buck, steps up beside his father, both surveying their domain. Then, the scary part happened. The Great Prince silently turns and walks away, leaving Bambi, the new prince of the forest with the responsibility to lead and protect the animals of the forest. Not long after I saw this movie as a young adult, newly married, recently moved to an unfamiliar town and starting a new church, one of those men who had always seemed like Bambi's dad to me died. He, like my own dad, was one of those men you'd count on in a fire. Steady, imposing, decisive.
It was frightening to me to identify with Bambi. The challenges and tasks that lay before him/me. Moving from 'son' to 'dad'. All of a sudden, my generation moving into the role of the last generation seemed less like the mental exercise of a freshmen philosophy course and more like real life.
That was nearly 20 years ago, which brings me to last week, when my grandmother, Arrita Mae McKay, passed away. She was my last remaining grandparent. She was in the hospital about a week, and seemed to be recovering from her bout with Pneumonia when 'just like that' she went into respiratory & cardiac arrest. They were able to get her heart pumping again, and help her breathe with a respirator, but they never brought grandmother back. At the funeral, I was talking with my dad and something he said reminded me of Bambi. Dad's words were "I told your mom that there don't seem to be many of the old generation left anymore, and she told me "we are the old generation now."
I've grown accustomed to, and even comfortable with my move into the role of "dad" in my world, but it is a weird sensation to think about, not Bambi, but Bambi's dad. Yeah, I know my son is only 7, and that there will likely be many more forest fires for me to fight, but I've got a few under my belt now, and the confidence that comes from experience makes the next one not so daunting. I've survived before and that makes me believe I'll survive the next one too. I just never noticed Bambi's dad, until I listened to my dad last week.

I am learning, I think, that life will never be without it's frightening, and difficult challenges. I will never be at a point in my life where I can just "coast" downhill. That "Ahhh, I've made it! Soul, take thine ease. Eat, drink and be merry" moment is a moving target. It will always be just out of reach. I think, in fact, that it was as foreboding for Bambi's dad to step away as it was for Bambi to step up. Do you ever think about that? Do you think that maybe it's meant to be that way? That life isn't meant to be taken on cruise control?
Not only did I lose my grandmother, but my mom lost her mother, and just about a year ago, when my grandfather died, I watched my grandmother lose her husband. Someday my son will lose his grandmother, and at the same time will watch me lose my mother. Then, almost like the song that never ends, someday someone will lose me...when my song here on this earth ends.
Goodbye Grandmother. I will miss you. Tell Granddad "hi" for me, and I'll see you later.

Solomon's Counselors

And king Rehoboam consulted with the old men, that stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, and said, How do ye advise that I may answer this people?...But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him, and which stood before him:

1 Kings 12:6-8

Did you notice that? Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, had counselors. Why? Isn't that a bit redundant? Or is it great wisdom to realize that no matter how wise you are, you need the advice and counsel of others? I suspect the latter. Even the great wisdom of Solomon, was made wiser by the counsel of others.

But we do at times forget that don't we? I recall a time when I had a terrible church problem dumped in my lap. I really didn't know what to do. I was tempted to just leave and let it be someone else's problem, but then my wife asked "Is that what God would want you to do?" No, it wasn't. Ok, but I still don't know what I should do. This problem threatened the very existence of a congregation. Handle it wrong and the congregation would cease to exist. So what to do? I remembered a great promise in the book of James.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
James 1:5

I embraced that promise. I made it mine, and I prayed. I asked, implored, begged God to give me the wisdom to work through to His solution for this problem. I believed it would happen...Every day for that couple of months, as I drove down the road to another home, another brush fire, I asked, and expected. I expected that "ah-ha!" moment. You know, the instant when the answer appears, crystal clear, fully formed before you...but it never came. Oh, I did my best, I called my Dad and a few other elders, evangelists, and older men for their advice, but I never got that Ah-ha moment.

Somehow we did struggle through. We got it right. We did, in that instance, what God would have us do, even though it was painful and difficult, and now there thrives a healthy, growing congregation where only a shell exited before. As the smoke cleared and the dust settled, I began to wonder. What did I do wrong? Why did I not receive the promised wisdom to handle that problem. I believed, I prayed, I sought His will in His word, but no fireworks. Not even that 'still small voice in the night'. I never doubted God, or the promise mind you, but I just didn't understand.

Oh well, you can't dwell on something like that forever, so I moved on...still puzzled, but moving on none the less. Then one day, many months later, when reviewing the situation in my mind I understood and I said "Ah-Ha!".

You see, God did answer my prayer, He just didn't answer it the way I expected Him to. His answer was there, right in front of me all the time, guiding and directing me. Instead of a "flash of lightening" moment though, what God did was to surround me with wise counselors who steered me through the process. That shouldn't have surprised me. The wise man himself had told me.

Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
Proverbs 11:14