I was almost giddy with excitement when I saw that my broccoli had sprouted overnight. We just started the seeds on Monday! I am so excited! Ask me if I'm still this excited when I'm diligently looking for broccoli worms in June.
A friend sent this photo to me yesterday. I couldn't help sharing it with you!
I was almost giddy with excitement when I saw that my broccoli had sprouted overnight. We just started the seeds on Monday! I am so excited! Ask me if I'm still this excited when I'm diligently looking for broccoli worms in June.
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See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come; the cooing of doves is heard in our land. Song of Songs 2:11-12 Even as a kid, I loved this scripture. And, for some reason, this year it seems particularly pertinent. I don’t like being cold. I don’t like the strong winter winds and the ice storms and shoveling snow, chipping ice, and worrying about enough wood and potential power outages. In fact, this entire winter has seemed to be a stressful time of worrying about too many things to do, not enough hours in the day, the weather, and health issues. I feel the winter cold (and all its accoutrements) wearing away my reserves. I am weary. The dark, dreary, cold days are a perfect foil for the stresses and troubles. More times than I’d like to admit, I’ve found myself turning to scriptures like “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15); “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). “ . . . And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. . .” (1 Corinthians 10:13). “. . being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6). “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17). And so it occurs to me that winter, with its cold and its trouble, is a type of this life. This life is not meant to be easy. There are too many examples of Godly people in the Bible who suffered. Think of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshack, Abednego, Joseph, and Job. Perhaps we can make a case that all of the former deserved to suffer; they were sinners, after all. But I don’t think that’s all there is to it. Think of Christ. He was without sin, yet he suffered. It is not lightly that Isaiah refers to him as the suffering servant! How can you read Isaiah 53 or the gospel accounts of the crucifixion without feeling deeply the suffering Jesus Christ suffered for you! The wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years is perhaps another type of this life. Their dwellings were not permanent - as ours are not. We are just strangers, claiming God’s kingdom as our permanent home (Hebrews 11:13-14). They looked to God for guidance of when to move, when to stay, and what direction to take - just as we should (Proverbs 3:6). God provided for their every need - water, manna, protection, victory over their enemies - even when they didn’t get what they wanted, but rather what they needed. (Exodus 16:3) God also has promised to give us what we need, not necessarily what we want (Matthew 6:25-26). God took care of them, even down to preserving their clothes and sandals for forty years!!! (Deut 29:5) What a miracle that was! And I know that God has performed incredible miracles in my life! I’d dare say you could find a few too. So, despite the troubles of this life, we are assured that God is with us; He has not left us. All right. So winter is cold and unpleasant. This Christian life is full of suffering and trials. But, both are necessary. Without the rest, the cold, the precipitation, the plants would not be hardy, the soil would not be as fertile, the bugs would overtake us (yes, worse than the present Japanese beetle epidemic!), and the gardens would not grow as well. Similarly, without the stress to fight against, our mettle would not be tested in the fire. Romans 5:3-4 puts it this way “. . . we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” There is a definite purpose to the things we endure, and specifically, how we endure them. Nevertheless, I don’t like winter and I don’t enjoy the difficult things that I go through. But I take heart. Lo, the winter is over! We are on the edge of spring. Warmer weather is on the way. We are almost done with dark and dreary. Similarly, the signs are all around. This life is not going to last much longer. Take heart! Jesus Christ is coming back soon! He will establish His kingdom on this earth and do away with all of the pain and sorrow and death. Even though we don’t know exactly when He is coming again, we do have a divine appointment with Him in the near future. As we watch for the new moon this week, we’ll know that Passover is just a couple of weeks away. It’s time to get ready for this divine appointment. Even as you are cleaning the leavening out of your homes, air out the corners in your heart. Sweep out any feelings of bitterness, strife, and envy engendered by the carnal nature as you trudged through the wintery mire. Open wide the doors. Examine yourself. Pray that God will be merciful, even as He shows you your sins. And rejoice! Spring is coming! Christ is coming! Yes, if you belong to Christ, He dwells within you, and will dwell within you even more abundantly. Come, Lord Jesus. I asked the kids to write a short story yesterday. This was Jonathan's (with my added editorial moral at the end):
Avalanche by Jonathan Saladin This story takes place in the Colorado Rockies. Bob was skiing down a slope. Bob loved to ski. As he was going down, he saw a steep slope across a ravine. He decided to give it a try. He hiked around and started down the slope. About halfway down, he heard a loud rumble behind him. He thought, “I must have stirred up a grizzly bear. Lucky for me, I’m on skiis and he can’t catch me.” About three-fourths of the way down, rocks started passing him. He exclaimed, “That grizzly must be throwing rocks at me! I should speed up.” Bob was almost at the bottom when trees started passing him. Bob looked back in wonder to see how big this bear was. But it wasn’t a bear. It was an avalanche. (Didn’t see that one coming, did you?) Bob sighed with relief. “Oh, is that it? That’s no problem,” he said. Bob reached into his backpack and pulled out his foldable, military-grade flamethower. (What else would he be carrying while he was on a skiing expedition?) “I never leave home without it,” he said. He aimed at the avalanche and pulled the trigger. Sputter. Sputter. “Uh oh,” he said. He looked around frantically either for an escape route, or for another foldable, military-grade flamethrower someone had carelessly left laying around. No flamethrower, but there was a bridge over the ravine he had gone around earlier. “How did I miss that?” he said. He skiied as fast as he could toward the bridge, right in front of the avalanche. He made it across just in time. The avalanche crushed the bridge and fell into the ravine below. Bob watched calmly. “Well, back to skiing,” he said, “right after I reload my flamethrower. I want to be ready for the next big white tree-hurtling grizzly bear." Moral: Most of us have an enormous proclivity to fall over the truth, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and blithely resume our path. “. . . What? shall we receive good at the hand of God,
and shall we not receive evil? . .” (Job 2:10) We tend to have a mindset that if we love God and are a Christian, trying to follow God’s ways in our lives, then He will bless us. And blessings, we further define, are good things, things we want. We aren’t alone in this line of thinking; remember Christ’s disciples who were dismayed at the idea of how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God?! (Matthew 19:23-25) Christ’s disciples equated the physical riches with blessings from God - and the more wealth, the closer one must be to following God’s ways. So when difficulties in life come, sometimes our conclusion is that God is withholding blessings because we are not right with Him, that we must try harder to live as a Christian - in all that entails. When Jonathan was born, he was a very demanding baby. He wanted to nurse every hour - around the clock. Furthermore, he wanted to fall asleep nursing. Often he’d wake up when he realized he wasn’t nursing anymore. So I would walk him until he fell asleep again. Then, when I would try to lay him in his crib, he’d wake up. There were nights where I’d get an hour or two of sleep before his cries would wake me up. I’d nurse and then walk him for 20-30 minutes, fall into bed only to be awakened an hour or two later. After seven weeks of this, I was so exhausted I could hardly think straight. Then suddenly this scripture popped into my head: “for he grants sleep to those he loves.” (Psalm 127:2) Immediately the doubts came crashing in!! I thought to myself, “I’ve been praying for sleep. I’m not getting sleep. God must not love me” Then I thought of a good family friend, Tommy, who suffers dreadfully with insomnia. I thought, “But God loves Tommy!” It was the next day that my eyes fell on a scripture with incredible promise: “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” (Isaiah 40:11) When I dug into the meaning of the words, the primary root of “gently lead” is “to run with a sparkle,” and means by inference “to protect, sustain, carry, feed, guide, lead gently on.” Furthermore, the “those that have young” is alternatively translated as “those who give suck.” I was so buoyed by the incredible promise in that scripture and by the comfort God was giving me in spite of my sleepless nights. So why was God allowing me to struggle with sleeplessness? I think He was working with me that I would learn to accept both good and evil from His hand, that I would learn to trust Him no matter what. God reinforced my head knowledge of needing to trust Him about six months after Christopher was born. Allie Dart called and asked me write a book of lessons on Joseph’s life. I kept returning to the same theme of trusting God, but from different angles. I must be a slow learner! After writing all of those lessons, I had the opportunity to transfer some of that head knowledge to heart knowledge as Ron and I started building our house. I thought that if building this house was God’s will for us, things would go smoothly. Nothing went smoothly! Well, it seemed as though very little went smoothly. (In fact, Ron told me that our house-building project really went quite well; it is just the way house-building goes.) But again, I found myself wondering if we were acting outside of God’s will, if my relationship with God was not right, and even if God still loved me. I was becoming very stressed. Then I began thinking back over those lessons of Joseph’s life and the many times that God has blessed me. Slowly, very slowly, I am learning to trust God. And as I take each step, that trust is tried in the fire. My older brother, Bob, died suddenly just three weeks before Christopher was born. We were not prepared. But God was there, giving comfort to our family, and reminding us in many little ways to trust Him no matter what. Why does God do this? Why can’t the life of a Christian mean smooth sailing through this life? Why must we learn to trust Him - no matter what? Why are we tried in the fire? Do you remember the Parables of the Potter? (If you don’t, please borrow the video from Ron and me.) The clay vessel (me) is not usable until it has gone through the fire. The fire reaches temperatures so hot that the clay almost melts; it is almost more than the clay can endure. However, having gone through the fire, the vessel becomes usable to the potter! How usable do you wish to become? How much are you willing to endure? The firing tests the quality of the character of each pot - and of each of us. It is necessary in our development as Christians - as we walk within God’s will for each of us. There is great joy in knowing that the difficulties in our lives are not chance and circumstance - not for God’s children! God is in control! Wrap your mind around some of these thoughts; re-evaluate your definition of blessings and of what it means to be a Christian. Hopefully you’ll walk away encouraged that you are a child of God and that God cares enough for you to mold you after His will. He’s got great plans for you! Selah!! I wanted to teach my 16-month old daughter Jennifer to share. So one day I gave her two M&Ms. I told her she could eat the first one. The second one I told her to give to her older brother Jonathan. Jennifer looked at me like I’d lost my mind. She loves chocolate (Thanks, Ken Lee!!)! She couldn’t imagine why I would give her a piece and then ask her to give it up. With much coaxing and scolding, she finally decided to give the M&M to Jonathan. He thanked her and praised her. I praised her - and gave her another M&M, which I told her she could eat. I repeated this several times. Then suddenly, she changed her behavior. When I gave her the two M&Ms, she hurried both of them over to Jonathan to give to him. She liked the praise so much she was willing to give up the treasured candy she loves. I was amazed! Then it was Jonathan’s turn to surprise me. He graciously took both M&Ms from Jennifer, thanked her, ate one, and then gave one of them back.
The Israelites had just come out of Egypt. God had freed them from slavery to Pharaoh. God had saved them from the Egyptian army. God had miraculously opened the Red Sea for the Israelites to walk across on dry ground. God had given them water in the wilderness - twice. God had given them manna and quail. God had defeated the Amalekites who attacked them. Then God gave them the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. This whole time, God went before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them. The people had had so many miracles done for them. They had water and food. God had protected them from their enemies. They knew He was with them all of the time. God had given them so much!! Then God gave Moses the instructions for building the Tabernacle in the Wilderness. This was to be the place where God would dwell with the people. It was a large tent that could be taken down and moved as the Israelites wandered in the Wilderness for 40 years. God also gave Moses detailed directions for building the Ark of the Covenant, the Table, the Lampstand, The Incense Altar, the Altar of Burnt Offering, The Courtyard, the Oil for the Lampstand, the Priestly Garments - including the Breastpiece and other garments, the Basin for washing, the anointing Oil, and the Incense. Wow! This was not just a hastily-built tent. This was elaborate and detailed. It was to be made with the finest of materials. It was to be done exactly as God described it to Moses. But where did all of the materials come from for building this Tabernacle? The LORD said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from each man whose heart prompts him to give.” (Exodus 25:2) But where did the people get all of the materials? Remember they brought all of their possessions with them as they left Egypt - including all of their flocks and herds. The animals would provide the skins and the wool for weaving cloth. As for the gold and silver furnishings - do you remember that the Israelites asked their Egyptian neighbors for articles of gold and silver before they left Egypt? God had made the Egyptians very willing to give to the Israelites. So the Israelites had taken a lot of silver and gold from Egypt!! This is why the Israelites were able to give to make the Tabernacle and all of its furnishings. And isn’t it interesting that despite the murmurings, complainings, and sins, the people had a heart for giving to God. In fact, Moses had to tell them to stop because the artisans had more than enough for constructing the furnishings of the tabernacle. (Exodus 36:3-7) So what about you? What has God given to you? Good health? A nice place to live? A great family? The food you eat? The air you breathe? What is it that God has given to you? Everything. God has made it all. It all belongs to Him. (Psalm 24:1) God has given everything you have to you. So, now He wants to see what you’re going to do with it. Will you keep what He has given you? Will you use it for yourself? Will you share with others? Will you use what God has given you to bring glory and honor to God? It’s easy for us to think about giving money. We’re used to that concept. But God doesn’t need your money. We’re used to the idea of prayer warriors. Okay, that’s encroaching on my time. Likewise, spending time sharing Jesus Christ with others is a sacrifice of our time. Be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within you. (1 Peter 3:15) But does God want more from you? Emphatically, yes! God wants all of you, not just your money and time. Your will. Your entire being. Spend some time thinking about what you have given to God - and what you haven’t. Is there still some part of you that you haven’t completely given to God? Are you still in control of some aspect of your life - or have you brought every thought into subjection to Jesus Christ? (2 Corinthians 10:5) We have to be willing to give up our will, our wants, our desires. It is part of the training process our Heavenly Parent has designed. It’s kind of like the story of Jennifer and the M&Ms. You have something your Heavenly Parent has given to you. You need to share it with someone. Even if you really don’t want to at first, when you do share, the rewards will be so wonderful that you will want to keep giving and sharing. As Paul told the Corinthians: “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians 9:6-7) And we’re not only talking about sharing with people around you, we’re talking about giving it all back to The One to whom you owe everything. You will be amazed at the ways that God will find to reward you for your giving. And believe me, it will be better than M&Ms! |
AuthorCynthia Saladin is a homeschooling mom of three, with a passion for teaching them about God and having a personal relationship with him. Archives
November 2023
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