Watering my garden with tears

Come close to God and He will come close to you. Realise that you have sinned and get your hands clean again. Realise that you have been disloyal and get your hearts made true once more. As you come close to God you should be deeply sorry, you should be grieved, you should even be in tears. Your laughter will have to become mourning, your high spirits will have to become heartfelt dejection. You will have to feel very small in the sight of God before He will set you on your feet once more. James 4:8-10

Because He is so very, very big.

There is a difference (big) between humiliation and humbling. Humiliation is when someone stands back (far away) and mocks and innumerates flaws and points fingers and maybe even throws rocks.  And it creates feelings of rejection and hopelessness.

Humility on the other hand, is a realization of Truth. It is a clearing of the fog by our own choosing. Realizing as in becoming fully aware of (something) as a fact; understanding clearly. As I come close to God, stepping into the light, the darkness and stains and yes, foolishness of my disloyalty and sin become obvious. The ultimate “I could have had a V8” moment.

But a moment of embracing welcoming and hope for the future. Come My child, I have been waiting for you, seeking you, stopping at nothing (arms lifted up) to bring you into Myself.

The Pharisees humiliate; Jesus knelt down and scrabbled in the dust.

May my heart be true.

Soft enough to love the least of these, even Me

Do you imagine that this spirit of passionate jealousy is the Spirit he has caused to live in us? No, he gives us grace potent enough to meet this and every other evil spirit, if we are humble enough to receive it. James 4:4-5

Potent grace. Powerful and sufficient. If we are humble enough to receive it. Releasing the I can do it, or most likely the I have to do it on my own, and open my heart and mind and soul to receive His gift, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. To walk in complete freedom, freedom from the oppression of fear or lust or doubt or anger or weariness or rejection.

Because this is holy ground. Me. Because somehow the Great I AM has chosen to make His abode in me, this simple clay vessel. 

But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8

Selah.

basta

You crave for something and don’t get it, you are jealous and envious of what others have got and you don’t possess it yourselves. Consequently in your exasperated frustration you struggle and fight with one another. You don’t get what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And when you do ask he doesn’t give it to you, for you ask in quite the wrong spirit—you only want to satisfy your own desires.

You are like unfaithful wives, flirting with the glamour of this world, and never realizing that to be the world’s lover means becoming the enemy of God! Anyone who deliberately chooses to love the world is thereby making himself God’s enemy. Do you think what the scriptures have to say about this is a mere formality? James 4:2-6

I read a guest opinion in the New York Times this morning with this lead sentence: IN my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn’t big enough. 

And the guy goes on to detail what this love of the world looks like tastes like and feels like. The nagging envy that woke him every morning.  I am uncertain what a deliberate choice looks like; most of us are more like lobsters in pots, slowly simmering away in our own juices until it is too late.

The unfaithful wives metaphor holds true…it is all about flirting. Batting eyelashes at the glitter but trying to stay just this side of the pretend line in the dust. But Christ explains that the lust of the eye is just as incriminating as the actual romp. We all live it in this image-driven society. The sidelong glance that shifts into fondling caresses that bubble up into green-sludge jealousy.

And where it all leads, at least in my life is ingratitude. It is all pornography, lies airbrushed into my mind, Lies that squeeze and twist all hopes of enough. It is never beautiful enough. Tasty enough. Clever enough. Exotic enough. Especially Him. 

Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child with his mother, Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

a soft answer even on Facebook*

The wisdom that comes from God is first utterly pure, then peace-loving, gentle, approachable, full of tolerant thoughts and kindly actions, with no breath of favouritism or hint of hypocrisy. And the wise are peace-makers who go on quietly sowing for a harvest of righteousness—in other people and in themselves. James 3:17-18 

Quietly sowing. This brings to mind a flurry of like-minded verses…be gentle and kind in all that you say and do…do not weary of doing good… speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people… the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness…and of course…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Just thinking, this is one of my student objectives for my next unit in Environmental Science that I am putting together this weekend as we explore “extraction.”  I am structuring a policy debate unit on a local flaming hotspot of contention: the Rosemont Copper Mines and whether it should or shouldn’t be. And sometimes speaking with perfect courtesy and correcting with gentleness is not so much something that is taught or modeled, but I am going to give it a shot, mixed up with of course, development of conceptual skills and depth and focus of knowledge acquired.

And first of all, may the Spirit have His way in me, that I may learn from Him who says, Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

* Somehow this rather mild verse set off a Facebook fuss.

Pushing aside the leaves, looking for fruit

We use the tongue to bless our Father, God, and we use the same tongue to curse our fellow-men, who are all created in God’s likeness. Blessing and curses come out of the same mouth—surely, my brothers, this is the sort of thing that never ought to happen! Have you ever known a spring to give sweet and bitter water simultaneously? Have you ever seen a fig-tree with a crop of olives, or seen figs growing on a vine? It is just as impossible for a spring to give fresh and salt water at the same time. James 3: 8-12

Something about this verse touches me so deeply that it is difficult to even put it into words. I tried yesterday. Nothing. Today. Nothing. Just a heartache. Something grips me about the idea of fellow-men, who are all created in God’s likeness. And surely blessings and curses coming out of the same mouth, my brothers, ought not to happen. And I feel splattered all day long by springs of bitter water.

Let me be an instrument of peace.