Streams of Mercy

In going through some files in my little office in the manse, I came across something I wrote 40 years ago, during one of the many times of transition in my life. It spoke to my heart as though written yesterday.

God, the Tree and Me

Psalm 1:3; Isaiah 61:3

Looking out my kitchen window, I see many oak trees. The tall, rugged trees hold on to bunches of brown, crumpled leaves all winter. While all the leaves on other trees, and most of the oak’s leaves give way to frost, wind, rain, and snow, a few stubborn ones cling to the otherwise barren branches.

The tree has no power on its own to “let go” of these remaining leaves, but will wait until the spring sap rises, at which time those leaves will fall off by themselves.

I am like that tree. As I move from season to season in my life, old, ugly dried-up “leaves” continue to cling to me. Like Paul, the things I want to do I seem unable to do and the things I don’t want to do, I do. (Romans 7:19) How hard I work to pluck off those leaves, and how discouraged I become when they stubbornly remain there.

As it is with the oak tree and the spring sap, so it is with my life. I simply need to dwell in the presence of Jesus, abide in His Word, and be open to the moving of the Holy Spirit in my life – confident that as the Spirit begins to flow through me, all those ugly old habits, that cling so tightly will begin to drop off with no effort on my part, and I will be able to walk in newness of life.

Looking out the kitchen window gave me the gifts I wrote about years ago. After this year’s Ash Wednesday service, looking up at the pink sky with a sliver of moon and Jupiter and Venus standing guard was a moment when the heavens were telling the glory of God. The season of Lent is a time to look inward to our inner selves and make the changes we need to make in our lives to live more faithfully. It’s also a time to look upward to God, so that we might more faithfully look outward to a world longing for the good news of the gospel.

Elizabeth