Feet Firmly Planted

Here is a man
whose feet are firmly planted
In the world.
His own arm can save, he boasts,
or the arms of better men
but not God.
A small, stunted shrub
in a vast desert wasteland,
he talks away even the
good things that cone his way.
Barren is he, in a barren land.
Here is a man
cursed

Here is a man
whose feet are firmly planted
in God’s kingdom.
His own arm can’t save, he knows,
nor the arms of better men.
God is his confidence.
No small bush, but a tree
planted and rooted by water.
Good things are his,
leaf green and fruit lush,
untroubled by heat or drought.
Here is a man
Blessed.

And what of you?
The heart tells you where your feet are placed.
In the kingdom, it insists.
Be wary of the lying heart.
God sees deep into the soul,
strolls through the hidden thoughts,
knows the ground
where you choose to stand.

Choose to be
the blessed man.

(Jeremiah 17:5-10)

 

God's Sweet Fruit

The path that leads to the bus stop is cordoned off. It would be really interesting if it was police tape, and the area was a crime scene and there was a body somewhere.

But, ah…it is a crime scene and there is evidence of electric saw activity. The tape is Highland Council stuff. They are cutting down trees that border the field. They are lines of fir trees, not particularly ancient, not particularly pretty. They are not remarkable at all. You don’t have to be old or pretty or remarkable to justify your existence, do you? If so, I stand no chance at all.

I wonder whether the trees are diseased, or whether with some low branches which tempt youngsters in climbing them, they have become a health and safety issue. In this world of claiming compensation, does mummy or daddy worry about little Johnny climbing said tree, falling and being injured.

I have just been watching ‘The Green Planet’ with David Attenborough. My pine trees are far from the rainforest but there is a biodiversity issue at work. The birds and the insects, the slugs and snails and the fungi – that intricate give and take existence has been pulled down. I don’t see them planting any new trees. They are not leaving anything behind that can become something new. A man and his trailer pulled up to collect the wood.

An earlier documentary on the life of plants. ‘The Private Life of Plants’ was also documented by David Atten borough. I called it PLOP. One of the episodes dealt with reproduction. It was all about the creative ways plants had of seeding the next generation. Flies spent the night stuck inside a flower, not to be slowly consumed, but to get covered in pollen and released the nest day to find another flower to spend the night it, pollinating as they went. Huge forest fires blazed, their heat releasing the seeds and the cleared ground producing the next generation of saplings and a new forest.

I have been reading about seeds and fruit and sowing and harvesting as part of my morning quiet time.

‘No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers.’ Luke 6:43-44.

Last week I had been learning about build a house on rock and the need to maintain the house afterwards. What happens after you move in matters. There is something similar going on in planting a tree. It is not left to just simply grow. How a tree flourishes or not depends on the weather, on the soil, on the bugs and bacteria.  How the fruit turns out depends on these things too. The weather might be out of our control, but other things aren’t. Just as the house needed to be looked after, the tree needs care too. 

 

I lived for a while in Cyprus. I lived in an upstairs flat. On one side of the building was a grape vine. I watched as my landlord in the flat below me tended the vine, snipping here and there, particularly when the grapes were showing. He constantly pruned the clusters of grapes to make sure they had enough space to fill out.

We don’t just bear fruit as Christians. We are fruit. We don’t just give away the word we are the word lived out before people. The kind of lives we live determine the kind of people we attract. The perseverance we demonstrate tells them that life with God is worth pursuing.

Fruit is nature’s way of reproducing. Everything that the tree is, the fruit contains in the blueprint of its DNA. We are fruit. Everything that God is, we contain in seed form.  He is reproducing himself in us. We become reproducers of Him, in others, when we share our faith, see people come into a friendship with God and teach them His ways.

Let me be sweet fruit.

Little Foxes and Wild Boars

I knew about the vineyard. I knew about the wall around it. And I knew about the little foxes that were destroying the vine in Song of Solomon 2:15.

I am not a farmer. Foxes have my sympathy. They get chased around the countryside by a pack of howling dogs and men on horses. And people post pictures of them on Faceboom looking cute. I don’t see the foxes as a threat.

Psalm 80:13 speaks not of foxes but of wild boars. The wall becomes a hedge and the damage to the vines is that much more destructive. They trample and uproot the vine. This is not minor small fox damage that can easily repaired. Without the protecting wall or hedge people were walking into the vineyard and just picking grapes for themselves.

Before Christmas, maybe November time, I went to visit a friend. She had phoned, perhaps. She had not been well for some time, and the medical profession had seriously let her down. When a person is diagnosed with mental health issues everything it explained by ti, it seems. I had visited. We talked and drank tea for s couple of hours.

God reminded me of the wall, and the foxes and the vulnerable vine. The boars had not registered at this point. My friend’s life was the vine, the wall or hedge was God’s protection around her but because she was not looking after her relationship with God things were broken and the enemy was stealing precious fruit. The way to mend the wall? I have always had a deep love and trust of God’s word and I have always seen the necessity to be a part of a vibrant church. I talked about her needing both the word and the support of a church. She nodded and said the right things, but I’ve been along this path before. Things don’t often change. We prayed together, and I left to walk home.

I am at fault here. I presumed things would not change and the prayer, if I am honest, although my heart was right in there, and it felt powerful – I had walked the road before and it did not occur to me that it would make a difference.

My friend phoned me a couple if days ago. I was having a tough time. Things were not panning out well, I didn’t feel I had the resources to deal with more tears and another round of building her up – and I said so to God. He was not sympathetic and told me to sort myself out. The precious word I had boasted about to her was mine too. So I set about sorting myself out.

Then it snowed and everything became icy and my shoes were gripless and I was sliding everywhere. I planned to go around to visit, but it was without enthusiasm.

Before I left the house, she phoned. She began talking about the wall, the vineyard and the little foxes and how that truth had so buried itself inside that she had started reading her Bible, making notes, asking for God’s help to find the treasure there. This was not the crying lady I have visited. Her voice was strong and confident.  She went on to tell me about what she had been reading, It was the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and how he had answered the devil, not with a conversation, but with the word of God. She knew, because I had said then, and God had said that morning to her that she needed to know His word.

Right, yes, answered prayer. That was one mind blowing thing. But God so wanted this conversation to happen that He couldn’t wait for me to put on my shoes and walk around. I think He knew I might talk myself out of going.

The very story she had read and phoned me up to tell me was the same story I had read too. The truth that had touched her heart had also touched mine. We talked about Jesus and how confident and competent He was in the word. Unlike Eve in the Garden of Eden with the serpent and his questioning and hole-poking-into what God had said, Jesus spoke only the word. No conversation. No opportunity to pick away at what God had said. It was the word alone. It was a remarkable conversation we had, my friend and I.

‘See,’ said God afterwards, ‘I told you I have given you words of life to speak out. I told you there would be listening ears.’

This was a word God gave me a while back in an Aglow meeting. It was a word that, all to clearly, I had put down somewhere and forgotten. What a way to bring it to life and to stir in me again,

My friend and I are meeting today. I will not worry about the snow or the ice or my gripless shoes.