Rooted In God & In God's Ways

I am rooted in who God has made me to be.  I find my delight in God and in His Ways.  I spend my time, day and night, pondering His Law, meditating on His love and His words.  I have become like the tree that grows outside my window and I watch for the lessons that it teaches.

My tree stands strong and silent.  It is just what it is meant to be.  It does just what it is meant to do.  It silently helps maintain life on earth.  It provides food and gives shelter to many of God’s little critters.  It provides beauty for those who take the time to look at it.  It doesn’t try to correct bad behavior; it doesn’t try to convert people to be a tree; it doesn’t sit and plan wicked and evil things nor does it try to stop them.  It simply stands there, being what it is and doing what it was meant to do.

My tree silently, without words, testifies to God’s invisible attributes, God’s eternal power, and God’s divine nature.  It provides and maintains life for all living things and gives me a sense of awe in the workings of God. It gives me a sense of peace in the knowledge of God’s Presence here on earth.  When I am faithful to who God made me to be and what God created me to do, I will yield my fruit and I will prosper.

God will see to the wicked ways that are in the world.  They have no rooting in God’s creation.  They, like chaff, will be driven away by the wind and will vanish from this world.

Sitting In Silence & Stillness: Useful Not Busy

The world is a busy place these days.  The churches are busy places these days.  I am not busy these days, mostly because of a body that can’t be running around doing this and that.  So I watch and remember my days of working and ministering to others. 

There was always so much to do, so many needs to be met, so many people who needed only moments of time.  But those moments mounted in number and I remember reaching the point of exhaustion more than once.

As I sit and watch others running around at top speed, developing multitudes of new programs to meet all of the needs of folks around them, I have to wonder, is keeping busy keeping others busy the tact that Jesus had in mind for His Church.  What I see and hear is a lot of busy people who use that busyness to curb the loneliness they feel inside.  Keeping people busy, having programs that meet every conceivable need is a tact the world sails on.  Always changing, always progressing, always on the move resulting in people who have no time to sit still and reflect on anything meaningful or soulful; this can’t be what God had in mind for His people.  One look at nature would confirm that He had more than being busy in mind for all of His creation.

In today’s world not being busy equates into not being useful.  That is a lie and it is a lie that God’s people should be exposing, not engaged in.  Being useful without being busy is the lesson my trees outside my window teach me as we sit in silence and stillness each other’s company and simply BE with one another.