Fruitful or fruitless

I’ve just been tidying up the raspberry canes. The late variety which produces huge berries is now on the dinner menu for ever larger wasps. I brought in two while wasps are devouring about a dozen.

Yesterday I heard a gardening expert on the radio mention that her apple crop has not happened this year because the wet spring prevented the bees and insects from pollinating them. 

The weather has really messed up our harvest this year. First of all the insects laid low while the flowers withered on the dripping trees, and now wasps are destroying the berry crop in a way I’ve not seen before.

I’ve been thinking about effective sowing of the Kingdom. Yes, I know that sowing is different from pollination, but it just made me think that there may be people ‘out there’ who are open to receiving good news of God’s love for them, but the environment they are in is preventing anyone from getting to them. People in countries where Christians are persecuted, for instance. But then that reminds me that God doesn’t actually need to use people, though he often chooses to do so. I’ve heard of instances where muslims in China, for instance, have had visions and dreams of Jesus and realized the truth of the gospel before any Christians shared it with them. Must remember to pray more for people in that situation.

Then I think of those big beautiful red rasps which are being mauled and devoured by wasps, and I think of Christians who allow culture and lifestyle to spoil the sweetness and nourishment of the message they should be feeding to those in their friendship circle. 

I hope and pray that I can be a big red rasp for others to be nourished on today – not pesky wasps, but those who hunger and thirst for truth.

Turn it down!

This will immediately give my age away. We went to a ceilidh (Scottish country dances) on the weekend, and the music was just too loud.

It was a good band, and if we had been able to dance perhaps I’d not have noticed. But with Don’s recent leg surgery, we were confined to the table with the other non-dancers, who all seemed to feel a need to keep up a conversation. Which is fine, if you can hear each other.

The conversations were interesting. I think. But I couldn’t hear everything that was being said. And my own throat began to hurt with the strain of shouting into another person’s ear.

At least there was a woman there who is younger than me, who had to flee the noise because of a headache developing.

Life in the twenty-first century is just too loud. Have you noticed that? Many people don’t feel comfortable unless there is music playing in their ears; when they walk in the fields and forests, they do so accompanied by the sounds of their favourite bands rather than the birds and bees. 

If you can’t even hear the birds and bees, how on earth do you ever think you’ll be able to hear God?

We walked out of the hall into the cool evening. The stars were out. And as we drove into the silence, we both breathed a sigh of relief. 

Now I can hear, if only I will listen.

Of summer sun and wasps

Glorious morning yesterday for sitting outside and enjoying Saturday breakfast, which Don usually cooks. French toast with maple syrup (yes, I know that the Canadian warehouse where they stockpile maple syrup has been raided and we could face a serious shortage soon. Note to self: buy a giant one at Costco next time.). 

The sun beat down out of a perfectly blue Med-style sky (or Californian, for that matter), and the wind desisted for the day. It felt perfectly settled as we pulled the folding table and chairs from the greenhouse and prepared to enjoy a relaxed breakfast.

Swoop in the wasps, drawn by the syrup perhaps, or the shower gel or the shampoo or whatever. I resorted to the Aussie cork hat (as anyone reading this who is friends with Doug on Facebook probably already knows) – glad to have furnished others with a good laugh.

Well. That’s the way of the world, isn’t it? Not the cork hat, but the wasps zinging in to sting their way through a rare, perfect summer’s day and ruin it for the humans. 

I guess you might think the same about the Garden of Eden. There they were, Adam and Eve and God, in a place brimming with good fresh fruit, exotic plants and abundant sunshine. And for Adam and Eve, hanging out with the Creator of the universe. What more could you want? In slithers the snake, slyly suggesting that actually, there is more. And Eve listened.

We swotted as many wasps as we could (well, Doug did) and I have to admit, the allusion is pretty weak as we didn’t hear any of them whisper, “Did God really say ...?” 

But I have to end by wondering out loud – where would the world be today if Eve had stepped on the snake instead of listening to it? 

It’s a little like wondering where we would be today if Hitler had died as a baby. There’s no knowing, but it’s probably safe to say that behind every evil being, there are a dozen others waiting to step up to the plate.

Praise God that he had a plan. Executed at such a cost to himself. What a saviour!

Cut it out!

Yesterday while Don was having his malfunctioning leg vein lasered and removed, I needed to keep busy, so came home and pruned some bushes. 

I started with the dead climbing thing that gets the red berries – forget the name just now. It’s been dying in front of our eyes and has looked withered and lifeless all summer. Once I removed the wire that was holding it to the house, it readily broke off as I cut the thick branches. 

I moved on to the bushes that have been creeping up round the windows, cutting out some of the meagre light and growing into each other in a confusion of green tangle. I got about three-quarters finished when it was time to go back to the hospital to get Don.

This morning I sat in my prayer alcove, which looks out on the bushes I attacked yesterday. From that vantage point I could see what still remains to be done, but also could appreciate the amplified light now that some of the shading leaves were removed. 

I guess as a Christian the parable is obvious. God the Father prunes us. He cuts out what is dead and unsightly, as I did that first bush. Without his loving pruning, those dead and unsightly things in our lives can continue to mar our outward appearance and obscure our vision. 

He shapes our lives to resemble those of Jesus Christ. He removes those things which are entangling and tripping us up. We were created to do certain things; we were gifted to be certain people in the Kingdom, and other branches – however good and healthy they might look – can’t be left to divert the growth of our main purpose. 

He reduces our height – even those things we were made to do, and which are looking good, sometimes need to be trimmed back lest they become leggy and lose their vigour and vitality.

It doesn’t feel good to be pruned. But it is absolutely essential unless we want to become undisciplined and ineffective – and yes, even unsightly – as Christians.

I’m not done with my bushes yet, and funnily enough, I know that God the Father isn’t done with me.

An uphill struggle

He was cycling up the hill, and he wasn’t even out of breath. He was able to wave and smile. His wheels didn’t wobble at all.

That’s what fitness does for you. Your body is strong and able to whiz down the brae or pump up the hill without ache or breathlessness.

I’m in training spiritually now, with more focus, more enthusiasm, more excitement than I’ve had for some time. I’m expecting to see God work in amazing ways, and I’ve got my spiritual antennae tuned to his wavelength. 

I remember the strength of the passion of my first love for Jesus, born again all those years ago. And I am determined to fan it into flames again.

So that when I encounter the uphill struggles in my life, I can take them on without wobbling or losing my breath.

With his grace and strength, this is possible.