Juicy Fruit

 

The season of plums. Victoria plums.

A month or two ago, Don and I stood beneath the plum tree, hoping to see a good crop of the fruit forming. We saw very few plums. Maybe half a dozen.

So disappointing. Last year we had an amazing crop. We love them raw, or stewed on our cereal at breakfast. They freeze well and give a taste of summer in the depths of winter.

But this year we had low expectations of enjoying many plums at all.

However, Don brought in a second harvest of them last night. Lovely and plump, blushing pink and juicy. Not enough to freeze any, but enough to enjoy now. There are still a few ripening in the autumn sunshine.

Jesus is looking for fruit in my life. When I look at my life, I see only a small crop of beautiful fruit, for whom I am so grateful. But Jesus sees those tiny buds which are still nascent, still forming behind a flutter of leaves. Some for whom I pray; some who I perhaps don’t even know.

Jesus is the gardener who will bring in the final harvest of my life. I am so grateful that I don’t have to do the final reckoning. My job is to keep my feet on the path of truth, my eyes on the hope assured because of Jesus. To fertilise my words with wisdom and love, my actions with kindness and patience, my outlook with faith and hope.

I love you, Lord. All my life you have been faithful. I will sing today, and every day, of the goodness of God.

Bucolic Bliss

 

I sit down at my desk and glance at the list beside my computer.

The to-do list you will always have with you, Jesus said.

Did he?

No, of course not, but he could have.

Earlier, when I sat down in my prayer window this September morning, I gazed out at the bucolic peace beyond the autumn finery on the driveway. Cows grazing luxuriant grass. No bellowing. No jostling. Focused on one thing: getting enough nourishment.

Contrast that with the skulk of restless foxes the other morning. They’d woken me with their disturbing cries. They shifted position warily, constantly on edge, jumpy, alert to every noise.

May I be like the cows today, Lord, content and trusting. May I never be like the wary foxes, nerves jangling, unsure and anxious.

I will never leave you nor forsake you, Jesus promises us. May that truth sink deep into my psyche, and yours, today, so that whatever the day may dish up, I know I don’t have to face it alone.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

Thank you, Lord.

 

Fallen

 

‘Look at my leg!’ my friend invited me. She rolled up her jeans and revealed a purpling, swollen leg pocked and dotted with scarlet.

She’d fallen over last week walking her dog. Doesn’t know how it happened or why. Nobody else was around. She just fell.

Thankfully, no bones were broken and she was able to limp home on a swelling ankle.

It is easy to mis-step in life, to lose one’s balance and find oneself floored and bruised, or worse. Innocent actions can lead to unpleasant consequences. Why?

Jesus alerted his followers, ‘In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!’

Not all consequences are the result of our sin. Some of them are simply because we live in this fallen world, where we have trouble.

Whatever the trouble, Jesus is the answer. He is the way, the truth and the life. And as we shelter in him, even in the trouble, we are encouraged, assured of his love.

So if you’re feeling bruised and swollen today, take heart. Jesus has overcome the world. By grace we have been saved.

A Skulk of Foxes

 

A visitor myself, I was startled awake by an agonised, pained cry from outside. It was just past six am, and the street had yet to rouse. I lay still, listening, wondering.

Again it came, prolonged, pitiful. Opening the curtains, my eyes widened as I watched a skulk of foxes hanging around on the divide between houses. (Yes, a skulk! Isn’t that an evocative word?)

We have lived in a rural setting for over forty years, and I rarely see one fox, let alone a skulk of them! But there they were on the outskirts of Glasgow, looking like a few dissolutes hanging out together outside a bar somewhere.

There are cries of pain in all sorts of unlikely places in our world today. This morning, hearing the news, I know there are cries of pain and grief in Morocco as they get to grips with the aftermath of a powerful and deadly earthquake. Floods in Hong Kong; wildfires in Greece, California, Texas and Oregon. Oregon? I thought it rained all the time there…

There are cries of pain inflicted by hardened aggressors all over the world, too. Skulks of people with evil intentions in positions of power. Inflicting pain. Pain: physical and emotional, mental and spiritual, as innocents suffer at the hands of these dissolutes in places of authority.

The other morning, I rustled the curtains and knocked on the window and the foxes, with wary glances my way, scuttled off across the street, into the bushes of the opposite house. Would that the warmongers could be as easily disbanded.

May I never walk away from situations I encounter, or which suddenly overtake me. Keeping my eyes steadfastly on the Lord of Hosts, Jesus Christ, may I pray constantly for this groaning, hurting world. ‘We have erred and strayed like lost sheep,’ and the foxes are hunting. Forgive us, Lord. Help us to walk in your ways, with hearts of compassion, eyes of love, minds transformed by your Holy Spirit.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

He rides shotgun

 

The stillness of a summer morning. Late summer morning. A light breeze barely brushes the plentiful orange rowan berries. Even the birds seem hushed by the beauty.

Before me lies a busy week, but for this moment, I rest in the peace of a green landscape bathed in the glow and glare of uninterrupted sunshine.

Come away with me, Jesus invites us. I will give you the rest you need. I will refresh and restore, renew and restart you. Come away with me and rest.

I hear of so many situations, so many reasons for anxiety and apprehension. Jesus walked through horrendous situations of threat and danger; he walked through them not just in peace but in power, not just in confidence but cheerfully.

For the joy set before him, Jesus could face the cross and see beyond it. I am so grateful that I am not facing any such testing situations as he did. And I am so grateful that whatever the day and week hold, Jesus is riding shotgun with me.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. May you, too, spend a moment to rest and be refreshed, to be encouraged and assured that whatever it is, wherever you are, Jesus is with you.

Sunday

 

Sunday. I love Sunday. I love gathering with others in our church, sharing each other’s burdens, laughing with each other, sometimes shedding tears.

We all need community. We were made for community. Don’t give up gathering with other believers, Paul told his friends. The world will see Jesus when it sees how we love each other. In these days, (maybe as in former days), when some churches hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, we want to remain steadfast and true, quietly revealing the glory of the Lord through lives laid down in love.

May you have a blessed week.

Quiet Beauties

 

A quiet walk on a quiet morning, the first of September but it feels as settled as a good summer day. We walked beneath a canopy of trees, hearing the birdsong trilling above us. Leaves are beginning to fade and change as summer slips into history. The feather-light down of dying thistles are highlighted in the sun before a breeze scatters the seeds far and wide.

Turning into our drive, I notice the ageing sign, behind it rising the historic Hill of Fare, on which a company has designs to plant over a dozen towering windmills. I’m passionately in favour of green energy, but as I’ve written before, this proposal, if built, will have no infrastructure to carry away the energy generated. It’s a whitewash of the government’s green credentials.

Enough of that rant. It’s too beautiful a morning. I was just reflecting on the fading beauties all around me.

I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? (not from an out-sized windfarm…) My help is in the name of the Lord, who has made heaven and earth. And what a glorious world he has given us to steward. May we each do a better job of it today than we did yesterday.