Green string and Christmas

I just noticed a piece of green plastic string – probably 2 metres long – tied to the curtain rail and left hanging there since it helped support the unstable Christmas tree five months ago.

I’ve been aware it was there but suddenly it is getting in my way. But I’m aware that actually, it’s only seven more months till we probably will have another unstable Christmas tree requiring a steadying support. Has everyone else been wondering when the slapdash homemaker would get around to taking that green string down, or is everyone else as blind or unconcerned about it as I have been?

It’s amazing how we can have artificial supports in our lives which we gradually become unaware of. They become part of the furniture of our minds/lives/spirits. We rely on them sometimes even more than we rely on God, whose support is secure, natural, supernatural even, and never breaks or lets us go.

Will stop now and get the scissors. At least I can attend to that pesky green string.

Those pesky weeds

I’m just in from trying to clear a bit of ground to put in the bedding plants. I say trying, because the earth there is a mass of tree roots, interwoven with ground elder shoots which twist and turn all over the place. I did what I could and put in the plants. Now we’ll see which is the hardiest: the weeds or the pansies.

I think I know the answer already.

Some bad habits and thought patterns have a way of sinking tap roots deep into my psyche. Despite my most focused efforts, they are entwined amongst other thoughts and habits so tightly that they just won’t budge.

I don’t have any problem believing that I need God. Only he has the precision tools to uproot destructive thoughts completely and replace them with healing, wholesome ones. Thoughts and habits that will bloom and carry fragrances that will bless others. Thanks be to God.

God's DNA

Sorry, the technician told Don when he took my new phone back into the shop. The previous day, a different technician had moved all my ‘stuff’ off my old phone onto the new one, but when I’d got home I discovered none of the phone numbers were in my Contacts list. Looks like a mistake was made. Now they are gone from both phones, old and new.

Because the signal has been so poor at our place I’ve rarely used it to make phone calls or even texts, so it hasn’t been such a big deal. I’ve contacted those who I think might try to call or message me, and I can manually re-enter the numbers.

Not much was at stake for me, but when I think of how the next generation depend on their phones for maintaining friendships and even business relationships, I can see why they might freak out at such a mistake.

God never makes mistakes. The miracle of creation: we see it at least every spring when new plants sprout from the seeds of parent plants. Ready to bear fruit or display blossom according to what their genes have programmed them to do. We see it in new babies, as we recognise traits from the parents blended into a new little miracle. 

Before I created you in the womb, I knew you, God says. Every life is precious, bearing the DNA of God himself.

Sunscreen

This is the day the Lord has made. And it really does feel like May, even here in Scotland!

It’s usually a surprise when we get a day like this. If I’ve learned one thing in my four decades in this northern country, it’s never to count on the weather forecast to be right. The other thing I’ve learned, weather-wise, is just because the sun is out and the sky is blue, it doesn’t follow that it is warm.

However, today it is a day for the garden. So having done my errands and got the washing on, now a bit more work outside round the fruit bushes. 

It’s easy to joyfully sing that this is the day the Lord has made, when things are going well. 

Sometimes, though, it is a sacrifice to praise the Lord, because there are things which make it feel unnatural to be joyful. Anxieties, sleep deprivation, ill health. 

Even so, the psalmist says, this is the day the Lord has made. What he has made, is good. Just as he is good. All the time.

Put on your sunscreen.

Garbage

Yesterday we changed the compost heap, opening up the black plastic cover to reveal rich organic material to dig into the garden. It had mouldered away under the plastic for a year or so. Now the plastic covers the newer vegetable matter and in another year or so it will have transformed into a rich fertiliser for the soil.

As we uncovered the compost, we discovered the winter hideout of the snails and slugs which devastate the garden every year. Without remorse we sent them to their maker, wondering why in the world he ever made them? Also sheltering there, feeding off the rotting compost, was a nest of mice. Two tiny babies squeaked their alarm at being discovered. No mother in sight. We transferred them onto the grass embankment, but I’m afraid the cats did the rest.

I’m thinking about how much of my time can be spent feeding on garbage. I’m not much of a tv-watcher nor do I read a lot of stuff on-line, but I can let thoughts churn round in my mind. I can be pre-occupied with disturbing thoughts which go nowhere but in circles. Philippians 4, in a newer translation, says, ‘Do not be preoccupied about anything, but let the things you ask for be pointed out to God by means of prayer and earnest requests with gratitude. And the peace of God, which conquers all processes of thinking, will keep watch over your minds and what you think about by means of the Anointed One Jesus.’ 

I don’t want to feed on garbage. I want to feed on God. I see the prescription for how to do this, in the advice in Philippians. So I am crying out to God today to help me to put this word into action in my inner being today. I am grateful that this is something he can, and wants, to do.

Peace today, then, as I surrender to God’s love. Peace to you, too.

Recycled

The unalloyed joy on a baby’s face, as he sees his mummy or daddy again after a few days’ absence, is just beautiful. He recognises someone who loves him, who looks after him and plays with him and comforts him when he needs it. 

God the Father doesn’t take work-trips or holidays. He is always with us: one of his promises repeated frequently in the Bible. But because he isn’t a physical presence in our lives, it is easy to begin living independently and not recognise he’s there. It’s easy to imagine that we can ‘do life’ independently. 

Nearly forty years ago now, I was pretty much lost in a life choice which was both wonderful but also required a big self-sacrifice. After a couple of years trying to go it alone, struggling to adjust, I was in danger of being sucked under into full-blown depression.  Then I was born again. I was like a baby who suddenly sees his father. The Father hadn’t ever left me, but in my own self-sufficient arrogance I’d been trying to go it alone. The Holy Spirit in me acted like a lightning rod drawing in God’s love and grounding it deep inside, changing me forever. The joy was just like that of a baby, unalloyed, spontaneous, total. I was, and am, so grateful, knowing I couldn’t have done it myself. I was a helpless baby, and finally as I cried out in my heart for help, God came. And I recognised him. 

The joy of the Lord is your strength, the Bible says. There is so much junk in the world, stirring anxiety and fear; there are challenges and obstacles ready to overshadow us and obscure the light and steal our joy. 

I read that plastic can be recycled into road paving, re-using something which will never degrade and also relieving the dependence on petroleum. It made me think of the junk in our lives, all the stuff that has gone on which was unhelpful, even terrible, and which can never go away. God is the great creator, and he can gather up all that junk, like plastic, and use it in our lives for good, in ways we can never imagine. All that hurt and pain that so hinders can be recycled into positive products which can be put to good use in our own or in other peoples’ lives.

God’s presence restores the joy. Placing ourselves in positions where we can recognise and receive from him, where we can be reminded of his unconditional love for each one of us, refreshes our souls. 

May you make time today to marinate in Jesus, who came to give us fullness of life and who loves us beyond anything we can ask or imagine. Such a gift. Such a saviour.