This first verse expresses my greatest desire. It sums up what I hope to be.
I want to be that tree.
Branches that reach out and bring shade and protection to others, while producing fruit quietly in the background. Waiting, patiently, with strength.
I'm not there yet though. I mean, some days I can offer some shade, I hope. Some days I am capable of producing a little fruit, maybe. But I am not the tree that I want to be.
I think the main thing I keep having introduced to me over and over is that we are all, every single one of us, less than perfect.
Stop and absorb that for a moment please.
I am not perfect.
You are not perfect either.
The people we know and respect and love, well, they are not perfect either.
Sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we ask more of people, and think more of people, and expect more of people than they are capable of being. Then my friend, like every other human for all time, those people we know and respect and love, well, they live their humanness. They mess up. They are less than perfect. Just like us.
I have had more than a few stories come to my attention over the last year that break my heart. I wish I didn't know them. I wish they never happened.
But they did happen. People messed up. Sin was lived out and left it's damage behind.
Now we, the humans living in the middle of it all, have to figure out what comes next.
I think I might feel like Elijah did when the brook dried up. I am sometimes afraid that the bad is bigger than the good. I am sometimes afraid that the evil is winning.
This next verse though, oh this next verse!
We are not left beside the brook that has dried up. We are not left in the desert to die. We are promised fresh rain. HIS Words fall like rain, giving us the renewal we need, if we will just seek them. Sometimes they aren’t as clear as we would like, but they are always there. Gentle showers on young plants.
Which leads me to this...
We might feel, some days, that we are growing weary.
Don't let that feeling win.
Please my friends, keep being the voice of love. Keep being the hands that offer help. Keep being the heart that offers forgiveness, even if the relationship has to change and perhaps the human trust can not be earned again.
Do not “lose heart in doing good."
That is harder than it sounds sometimes, but please, keep trying.
I am heavy as I write this, which is why it has been so long since I wrote, but the truth doesn't change.
We fail.
Every single human one of us.
So, every single day get up and try again.
Ask Jesus for forgiveness and help.
Ask the people you fill your life with for forgiveness and help.
Then, tomorrow do it again.
Join me in continuing to try, every morning, to make that first verse real.
Let us "bring forth our fruit", our hope, our joy, in "due season."
Be blessed my friends, and please, remember to see those blessings. Choose to see the blessings!
