Each year I mow my fallen leaves into my lawn, happy to have a way to dispose of them while gaining something in the process. My yard will be greener next summer with the integration of this season’s cast offs.
For years, back in the old days before mulching mowers became the norm, we bagged lawn clippings and fall leaves, set them at the curb, and sent them in exile to the landfill. Now we’ve reverted to the old practice of turning the nutrients back to the soil. The latest fashion retreats to what was formerly out of fashion.
God is ahead of the curve on this one. The Divine Gardener has long been an advocate of reworking what was once worthwhile into what will soon prove valuable. If we will just allow it.
What is falling off of you, old and spent, lifeless, dry? Social patterns, hobbies, attitudes, interests, friendships, passions and causes? What might The Lord be ready to do some distant day, having worked into the soil of your soul a preparedness for tomorrow’s regreening season, having pressed back into your soul once valued, once discarded items?
What you are shedding now may, if kept within the yard of your spiritual journey, be useful in support of His new initiative in you, in your acquaintance with His ways and His will for you. Careful what you discard beyond the Gardener’s reach. Some brown and curled leaf may soon push up spring’s lively emerald blade.
Tim Gramly
Education Pastor
SHBC
October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
In the Wrong Place
I am so used to thinking of The Parable of the Lost Sheep as part of the cycle of stories in Luke 15 that to see it in Matthew 18 was a bit of a stunner. I didn’t know that was there too! The nuances are instructive.
Luke uses this story up next to the parables about lost coin and lost sons. Matthew doesn’t. As a matter of fact, Matthew has an entirely different series in which he inserts this narrative block. Though both of these perceptive saints contemplated the same illustrative tale, neither felt compelled to use it as his fellow Gospel writer did.
When our hearts listen to God’s affirmation in Luke’s telling of the lost ones, you and I have little trouble sensing the value of the individual to The Father. That is exactly the point.
With Matthew there is a different message intended. The needs of the individual are front and center. He answers, “What guidance can be offered the needy individual?’
What do I walk away from this with? One fine example of how God uses each precious one of us to communicate uniquely to her/his audience what God has spoken to them personally. It is another biblical truth stated elsewhere in Scripture that God is at work in me to accomplish His purpose in a one-of-a-kind way. Isn’t His plan magnificent!
Tim Gramly
Education Pastor
SHBC
October 21, 2008
Luke uses this story up next to the parables about lost coin and lost sons. Matthew doesn’t. As a matter of fact, Matthew has an entirely different series in which he inserts this narrative block. Though both of these perceptive saints contemplated the same illustrative tale, neither felt compelled to use it as his fellow Gospel writer did.
When our hearts listen to God’s affirmation in Luke’s telling of the lost ones, you and I have little trouble sensing the value of the individual to The Father. That is exactly the point.
With Matthew there is a different message intended. The needs of the individual are front and center. He answers, “What guidance can be offered the needy individual?’
What do I walk away from this with? One fine example of how God uses each precious one of us to communicate uniquely to her/his audience what God has spoken to them personally. It is another biblical truth stated elsewhere in Scripture that God is at work in me to accomplish His purpose in a one-of-a-kind way. Isn’t His plan magnificent!
Tim Gramly
Education Pastor
SHBC
October 21, 2008
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