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What a beautiful day it is today, and should be when you get this letter! “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” It bristles with His glory and beauty. We feast upon such richness of color and sound and smell and taste and texture. The diversity of things which delight us is beyond measure. “Glory be to God for dappled things…He Fathers-forth whose beauty is without change. Praise Him.” As I sit here and think of you I know your lives are all in process. We all struggle with this or with that. The struggle is real. The pain of life is real. Nevertheless, I pray this Friday that no matter what your frustration or challenge, that you would be able to enjoy God today. Yes, enjoy Him, His presence, His world, His word, His blessings. I want you to be happy about being -- being His, being alive before Him, being in His world. As tragic as things are, as touched as we are by sorrow and pain, we are His, and He is ours. I pray that the God of heaven would pierce your heart with the joy of His love. I pray that He would cut right through the muddle and fog and emotional mixture of your conscious being and give you joy in a little thing this day, and that you would know this joy really to be joy in Him. Oh that you may enjoy Christ the Lord this day. Go ahead, feel free, let it happen -- enjoy God today. You know it was for the joy of bringing you to glory, of having you as his inheritance, of being able to have you as siblings in the Father’s family that Jesus endured the cross and despised the shame if it. You know, it makes Him happy when you enjoy him, when you delight in Him. This brings Him glory -- and joy. So, go ahead, enjoy God today! Part II It has been a beautiful week. I had the blessing of being at home with Madeline during many of the mornings this week, as the kids were all taking in a standardized test which Susan helped proctor. I spent as much time as possible sitting under the crabapple tree. My experience felt like a fulfillment of the promise in Micah, “Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken.” The crabapple began to bloom early in the week, maybe Sunday. As weather patterns changed during the week, two of the mornings were breezy, and the flower petals would come floating off the tree whenever a breeze came up. It was like sitting in a snowfall! Life seemed rich and blessed. Yes, it was great to have some time away from the computer and phone to think and meditate upon Scripture, to work on a few songs, and do a little planning for sermons down the road. But mostly it was great just to have some moments to “be,” either sitting there with little Madeline walking around on the grass pulling up dandelion flowers, trying to eat bark, making “woof” noises every time she would hear a dog bark, examining sticks and old leaves and whatnot, or having a few quiet moments with her napping. The Hopkins line kept coming to my head all week: “What is all this juice and all this joy?” I think of juice as that richness and bounty which is squeezed out of a fruit. In Spring it seems to me as if God’s beauty and goodness gush forth like juice from a apple press. It manifests itself in a diversity of shapes and forms and textures and colors. To gaze upon the beauty of the earth is to see and sense the beauty of the Lord Himself who made it and takes care of it. This beauty calls forth love and worship and praise. “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it!” I don’t really know how to put this, but the same squeezing forth of God’s richness, goodness, and beauty is evident in the personalities and faces of His redeemed children in Christ. Sometimes as sin rears its ugly head the beauty of Christ’s presence seems to fade. But as the Holy Spirit grows the fruit of love and joy in the person’s character, this then squeezes forth, again, as juice from an apple press. This beauty is then seen in the uniqueness of each person’s face, smile, voice, and “way.” The person brings blessing, just by “being there” as who they are in Christ. What is all this juice, all this joy? Just as the created order brings blessing in the variety and diversity of color and texture, so to each person brings blessing to others through the uniqueness which belongs to them. You could have five people read the same passage of Scripture, and each would open it up and transfer some different aspect of its blessing simply through the difference in voice, tonality, emphasis, mood, and spirit. Not only does each person have a unique way of edifying the body through the exercise of their gifts, each person has a unique way of blessing through the uniqueness of Christ’s personal presence in them, which includes, I believe, even the unique or quirky ways each of us has. This is one reason YOU are so important to the rest of us -- you manifest God’s presence and goodness in a unique way which blesses and builds up. Please don’t forget that. All who are in Christ are being made ever more human. Sin dehumanizes; re-creation in Christ humanizes. As we are remade into His image, we become more, not less human, and in becoming more human, we become more, not less spiritual. I couldn’t have been more human than as I experienced the joy of sitting out under the crabapple tree with Madeline, resting in the peace of Christ, delighting in the goodness of God’s world. I couldn’t have been more spiritual. Being spiritual is not escaping from physical and bodily life, but being made alive again -- body and spirit -- through the life of Christ, and knowing God and His love through His world and His word. Don’t downplay the significance of the normal physical and human stuff of which your life consists. And if you have a chance simply to “be” this weekend, please, by all means, do that, whatever is the equivalent for you of sitting under your fig tree and resting in God’s love and goodness. Go ahead and enjoy Him today! |
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