Leaf Lessons

I am a trigger-happy individual. The kind that's attached to a digital lens. In other words, I take a ridiculous number of pictures on a semi-daily basis. My photo folders hold shots of people I love, places I wish I could never leave, strangers at bus stops, signs that made me giggle...you get the idea. I was uploading my most recent batch of randomness tonight & I came across a picture of a leaf. It was a plain shot that normally wouldn't have been much reason to pause, but as soon as I saw it a rush of memory swept me back a few months to something I'd forgotten...& can't afford to.

The picture was taken the first day of October, while I waited on my family to leave for Cincinnati to see the last Chicago Cubs game of regular season play. We're crazy about the Cubs. Standing in their driveway, tired & feeling unusually "heavy", I wished for a vent of any kind. Many friends had offered to listen if I needed to talk, but I didn't know what to say. I felt wounded without words. Suddenly, something wet touched my mouth. It was the first of many tears that had breached the eyes without my noticing. All that I was feeling & couldn't release by speech was finding another outlet.

The truth is, I was feeling lost. Wandering at dusk. Needing a place to rest & feeling involuntarily tugged along a path with no clear destination. I'm a fan of spontaneity, but lately I'd been hungry for certainties. Many details of the "plan" I had for the coming year were faltering, & I'd been anxious for words of confirmation from my family, friends, mentors, co-workers, & the application review committee at the seminary in New Orleans. I was trying to wait patiently for the final bits of affirmation that I needed, so that I could begin moving forward confidently in that path that I felt so clearly called to. But, it seemed that everything I needed was being withheld. Anger, mixed with confusion & a touch of fear had produced sadness & desperation. I wanted to hear something that was absolutely for sure.

When my eyes cleared, the first thing I saw was a tree in my parents' yard that still held all of its leaves. It was the only one with leaves that were still green despite the first frosts that had been sweeping through northern Kentucky. Looking closer, I noticed that this tree's leaves were all in the shape of a heart. While walking towards it to take a closer look, a whisper came from within my own heart.

"This is absolute."

In the middle of our mostly bare yard, life called out. Love called out from a tiny leaf. My Creator was reminding it's crowned creation that this world is absolutely uncertain. Only He has ever been & will ever be perfectly constant & completely present. His love was all I could rest on with reckless abandon to worry or questioning. There was no reason to doubt Him, only to trust in His provision, but I had been yearning for the assurance of things & people that will never be able to offer me more than their best guess. Hanging on for human words, when He was shouting to me of His divine love. I spent the next few minutes asking His forgiveness for placing my hope in anything but Him.

The lost feeling left me.

I got in the car a few minutes later & slept all the way to the game. I thought about that leaf and the way the Lord had used it to remind me that He is all I should hope in for weeks. All the affirmation I had longed for slowly came, when I wasn't looking for it. Eventually I did forget the leaf & the lesson it had been used to teach. But, interestingly enough, I've been in another season of waiting recently & today (when I started to feel the same weight as before) I saw the leaf again. While tempted to seek comfort in the voices of my friends & family, He placed exactly what I needed in my path. This reminder came before I wound up wandering.

Isn't He good? Worthy. Faithful. Sure. Filling.

Today, there's a new lesson attached, too. I've realized that I'll always be waiting for something in this world, but going after Him in the waiting is more satisfying than arriving at each stop. It is my prayer that all His children will give up trying to get by on their own, & limiting Him to a vehicle from season to season. Let us embrace His continuity in our lives daily. We were made for that...

All Clogged Up

My junior year of college I moved into an apartment off of Old Brownsboro Rd in what my roommates & I considered "quasi-old Louisville". It wasn't downtown or within walking distance of the University, but we could bike if we woke up feeling ambitious. As extremely broke students, our aparment was tiny, & furnished with only the literal neccessities. But, it was dirt cheap considering what we'd all paid for our previous place, so we were beyond thankful. After about two months of living there, things started to get dusty really fast. (I like things clean, so I noticed.) We started to smell something funny coming from the slot in the air duct where the filter goes. SO, we decided to check the air filter. Novel idea, right? When we pulled it out of its place, dust and particles flew everywhere & all of us commenced a fifteen minute coughing fit. It was ridiculous. SO, we put it back & called the landlord to have it replaced. There were 13 units in the building, & the landlord was a 33 year old semi-newlywed seminary student with three tiny children. Needless to say, it was several weeks longer before the filter was changed. We could breathe, though, so it wasn't really worth a fuss.

The thing is, I passed a stack of filters once a week on my way to the laundry room in the basement. I can actually recall thinking, "Well there they are, so what's taking so long to bring one upstairs?" That laziness is embarassing when I step back from myself & see it clearly now. I could have grabbed one, changed it myself, & called Andy to tell him it was taken care of. We could have been breathing much cleaner air.

Sure, the air in our apartment wasn't hazardous to our health. No one developed any sort of rare lung condition or had to up their daily Claritin doses. BUT, it could have been purer. Clearer. The filter could have been doing what it was designed to do. Our silly negligence put that off.

I've been thinking today about the filter in my life. I know that the Word of God says that, as a believer, I have the Holy Spirit alive within me. He is the greatest filter I could ever hope to have actively purging me of what does not belong by way of conviction & guidance as I submit to Him. But, even in submission, I wonder what I have in my life that's clogging the filter from doing what it was deposited in me to do? Maybe they're not even quote-on quote "bad" things. Just extras that I put there for no reason. They're not hurting anything, but they're not adding anything of worth.

Airway obstructions.

The Scriptures call the things that are worth having in our lives "profitable". The word profitable implies that an item has the potential to yield advantageous returns or results. Why do we waste our time, energy, thought, worry, excitement, or love (among other things) on anything that doesn't fit that description? Now, I'm not talking about worldly or selfish gain. Think of gain in terms of heavenly things. Kingdom glory. Jesus' fame in this place. Bringing you closer to Him. Challenging those you love (in every way) to choose Him constantly. I want to de-clog. I want to be given eyes to see what is not-for-profit in my life & I want to throw off the laziness of just letting the extras remain. I want to see what I can do, in obedience, to make the most profit of what IS profitable. My friendships, my family, my service, my time with the Lord...

I want to. And, like the air filter, I can...if I will.

"On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." 1 Tim. 4:7-8

Lord, I pray that we will be a people who live to show everyone we meet, with everything they see in us, that You are satisfying. That the enemy's buffet cannot hold a candle to Your banquet. Te amo.

No More Wasted Wages

Three days ago I made the command decision to begin a blog.

Let me say from the start that my motives are mostly tied to a need for thought expulsion. Anyone who knows me well can testify to the fact that a lot goes on in my life, which leads to a lot being processed internally at any given time. I guess I just thought I could process easier if I put it into writing...my third favorite thing to do. When registering for this blog spot, I was asked to choose my own site address. Those same aforementioned people who know me well are thinking correctly right now that it took me FOREVER to think of what I wanted it to be. When I say forever, I really mean 10 minutes, but it feels like an eternity when sitting in front of a computer screen during a set-up process that is promised to "take seconds" for normal, not-so-contemplative people. After a few moments of coming up empty on my own, I pulled out the Word (a.k.a-The Holy Bible) & started flipping to the passages that I have marked with post-its hoping to be inspired in this small task. I stumbled on a few familiar verses that I had not read in a while from the book of Isaiah the prophet. They say:

"Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no money come, buy & eat.
Come, buy wine & milk without money and without cost.
Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
& your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, & eat what is good,
And delight yourself in abundance.
Incline your ear & come to Me.
Listen, that you may live;
& I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
According to the faithful mercies shown to David."
~ Isaiah 55:1-3

As a mostly visual learner, a picture immediately popped into my head. It was a surprising image. I saw the faces of the 21 freshman girls that I've spent most Sunday nights with for the last three years in fellowship & Word study. I saw them walking together in a big, mostly pink, group through the mall. They were laughing, smiling, carrying bags from their favorite stores, & drinking frappaccinos from the Starbucks in the food court. It looked so simple, harmless, & fun. I didn't understand why this image would match those words. Then I felt an overwhelming emptiness, a lot like defeat.

I realized for the first time that, though their lives have scarcely begun, they've already learned to enjoy waste, whether they realize it or not.

In this case it was money that they didn't earn, given to them to spend without restriction by their parents. They weren't doing anything wrong, but they weren't doing anything right either. It was a moment of wasted wages. Of money spent on shirts that wont be "cool" in a month, on drinks that will begin to melt and be thrown out before they're finished, on time in a place that's full of subliminal media messages telling them that satisfaction in life comes from the accumulation of more things. Things that will never satisfy their souls. Things that will briefly distract them from the abundance that God offers them when they bring all that they have to Him for His use in this world.
They are 14 & 15 years old, & they have decades to live differently. I want them to read, absorb, love, & live this scripture. The thought of them being protected by the warning in God's Word against a life that is spent seeking self-fulfillment is overwhelming to me...in a beautiful way.
I wish for our generation that we would begin living differently now, before more of our lives are wasted on things that are less than everlasting. After this thought process ran its course, I decided to name this blog site "No More Wasted Wages" & dedicate it to the hope that we will "incline our ears to hear" all that the Word of God has to teach us so "that we may live".