Last night was kind of hard for me. My heart was hurt and it was difficult to see the lesson in it. This morning I awoke and looked out my window while holding my cup of coffee. I gazed out of the glass for a time and my eyes began to rest on my wife’s tomato plant. It was totally encased in a beautiful sheen of frost. Each vine and fruit was completely surrounded in a chilling prison of ice; signalling the death of growth and the start of a new season. I began to lament the loss of fruit and the succulent heirlooms that the little garden had produced all summer, but the lord began to awaken my spirit to a different thought. Yes, the death of a process, a ministry, a season can be painfully awkward and a time of nervous anticipation of what might come next, but, there has to be a “death” for a new work to begin. You see, to be like Christ, something which we all should try to be, we need to put to death the old ways and live according to His Spirit; which is at work in all believers. Romans 8:13 says: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
So, what does Mr.Great Plains Poet do? I am to put to death all things that I hold dear, the things I have carved out for myself, and we all have those, the things that I have kept hidden and the things that are not of God. I truly want to live; to live according to His purposes and attain a more excellent way to walk with Him.
We get so wrapped up in death. We focus a lot of energy and time in preventing it, avoiding it and running from the sorrow and lesson of death. I won’t get into the pain of our own deaths and our loved one’s physical deaths here. That is for another post. But, I am talking about the state of our hearts now. We are so afraid to lay bare our hearts to the Lord; for examination, for perfection and for healing. We will never be able to move into a more mature relationship in the Lord if we fear death and hold tightly to a dream,sin or a striving that God didn’t put there in the first place.
As I try to mature in this faith I walk out daily, I need to not suckle the milk any longer; but be consuming the solid food the Lord has for me. Hebrews 5:13&14 says this: “for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
Now, this morning, as I continue to write this and gazed out my window at my wife’s tomato plant, two things the Lord has revealed to me.
#1. Even though the tomato is done growing and that fruit will die off, the seed inside is protected by the ice surrounding it for a season. The tomato will eventually decay, fall apart and leave its seed to fall to the fertile ground to continue in a new season somewhere down the road.
#2. Because of the willing death of that fruit, a new, more powerful, more Spirit inspired, season can begin; especially when we accept what God is doing in our hearts and allow His perfect peace to take hold of our paths.
I was reading this morning and was touched by this passage in the bible; another great example of our Lord Jesus’ sacrifice and provision. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death–that is, the devil–and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death”. Hebrews 2:14&15.
Please take hold of this in your heart and run with it like a dog with a stick in its mouth. Let the joy of the Lord rest in your heart as you turn the page on a new season. Today, make a change in your life and let Jesus “kiss your morning with frost”.
As usual, please feel free to leave a comment, subscribe, re-post and share with others what you have learned here.
God Bless you in your new season.
The Great Plains Poet, a living sacrifice, presenter of a laid bare heart and worshiper of the lover of my soul.
My Review
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I was honestly never a religious person until after the age of 10 and going through a painful childhood past - it was basically shoved down my throat in a sense by my grandparents. Although I was a reluctant child at the idea it opened my eyes in a different way and helped and still in a small way helps me to this day to eventually move past my dark childhood. There are times when life seems all too dark that I dont see how I could still be living and get past it, but somehow by unreasonable doubt I get by.
This is an excellent and inspirational write, Chris. A masterpiece in coping with the negative feelings and thoughts we as human beings tend to feel in our every day lives. Nicely done.
The repetition is effective here - I'm thinking of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the playing with word sounds, especially with rhyme and half-rhyme, the surprising turns of language, the change of seasons, the reverent quality of the natural world. The stanzas suggest structure and divine order.
This one in particular by Hopkins:
AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
The poem is extremely well done--rich in imagery, lovely of lyric and attractively presented; most importantly, of course, strong in wisdom imparted.
Excellent and inspired work, Chris.
I am a writer, poet, musician of 30 years, husband, father and follower of the Most High God. I try to let my writing point the way back to a relationship with Jesus. When I am not writing I am probab.. more..