In yesterday’s blog I mentioned my grandfather’s new milking machine. Afterwards he and my uncle, just a couple of years older than I, carried the buckets of raw milk out to the milk house. This was a small brick building with a metal horse trough inside. The buckets of milk were poured into the horse trough to await a milk truck to haul it away. This was in the 1950s when government regulations were more lax.
My Mom encouraged me to take a taste of the raw milk fresh from the cow. I always liked sugar and cookie dough raw, so I excitedly entered the milk house, took a metal dipper and filled it with the raw milk and took a big taste. Yuck! The warm pre-homogenized whole milk tasted bad indeed. I remember being thoroughly disgusted with the thick taste of that stuff.
There is a process that milk goes through before it goes to the market. The process changes the taste and content. Sometimes we’d rather take the shortcut and taste it raw, but its got to go through the process to taste the best. So it is with your life. We’d rather cut straight through all the process and go straight to God’s blessings. However, there is a process we must all go through. And its worth it in the end.
So, don’t give up on the process; God’s taking you somewhere.
Tags: growth, maturity, process
One day last week Anita and I stopped in to see Becky Young in her hospital room in Fort Wayne. While she encouraged Becky I tried to encourage Mike. Together we were discussing the drought and its effects. We observed that while the grass had turned brown every weed was thriving. especially the buck-horn. Not really expecting an answer, Anita observed, “There’s got to be a spiritual lesson in that somewhere.”
Becky thought a moment and then replied philosophically, “If you don’t feed your spirit, it dries up, but the weeds in your life only get stronger.” What an observation! Leave it to Becky to come up with logic like that from her hospital bed while dependent upon everyone else.
Like your lawn, if your inner spirit doesn’t get its thirst satisfied, it will go into dormancy. No life and no growth; only the appearance of death. How many Christians have already gone down that road? God is the source of life: go after Him!
Has God shown you any other life lessons from the drought? What have you learned?
Tags: drought, growth, weeds
Sorry I have not posted anything on this blog for a couple of days. I’ve been on vacation and spent Monday-Wednesday working hard outside to roll my lawn, prune trees, clean the garage, paint a wall and put my winter stuff away. Anita’s happy, but I’m worn out. Yesterday (Thursday), we drove to Nashville, Tennessee, where we will spend a couple of days with our daughter and her family. Its 80º outside and leaves on the trees already! The lilacs are in full bloom and its good to smell fresh cut grass again.
Have you ever wondered why Spring is so far ahead in one part of the world and so slow to begin in another? Its like that in spiritual life, as well. One person comes to Christ and becomes a spiritual giant almost immediately. Another person has been a Christian for years and still can’t get his/her life together. There are season’s in growth and there are differences in development. Those that are mature must step up and help those that aren’t. That’s the Christian life.
Tags: growth, maturity
Did you know that one of the most popular aquarium fish is the shark? If you catch a small shark and confine it, it will stay a size proportionate to the aquarium. Sharks can be six inches long yet fully matured. But if you turn them loose in the ocean, the same shark will grow to their normal length of eight feet.
That can also happen to Christians. Some Christians are the cutest little six inch people swimming around in their artificial pool. But I know others that have gone out into the world system with their faith and then became Great Whites.
How large is your swimming hole?
Tags: growth, shark
Several years ago I transplanted a first year sapling hickory tree from the woods behind my house to our property. I’ve got little growth on it because deer keep biting the top off, or it dries up in dry weather, etc. So, this year I have it shielded in a 6″ corrugated tile and have treated it with liquid fertilizer weekly.
A couple of weeks ago I checked on it and noticed that it had begun to grow, but the leaves had dried up. I got discouraged and gave up on the tree. I quit watering it and fertilizing it, and stopped checking on it.
I peeked down in the tube later, and lo and behold, that thing has sprung to life and has grown a foot! I’m really pleased to see such progress. What made the difference? All I can figure is I left it alone.
Although we need to stay involved in other Christian’s lives, sometimes the best medicine is to leave them alone to fix their own problems. God will teach them just as He has taught us. If we get out of the way. What’s that old saying? ‘Let go and let God.’
Tags: growth, tree, trust
In his book The Fisherman and His Friends, Louis Albert Banks tells about a man who was spending a summer near the shores of Lake Superior. One day he came upon an old pine that had been blown down by a recent storm. Knowing something about trees, he was intrigued by that huge evergreen lying on the ground. He examined it closely and figured it was at least 250 years old. What impressed him most, however, was what he discovered when he stripped away the bark. It was evident to him that on the day the tree fell it was still growing.
That’s the way it should be in the life of a believer. The years pass and our physical strength declines. The outward man perishes, but the inner man should keep on developing – mentally, emotionally, and above all, spiritually – until the day we depart.
How have you been growing this week?
Tags: growth, life
Remember Peter Pan? Remember his song?
I won’t grow up,
Not a penny will I pinch,
I will never grow a mustache,
or a fraction of an inch,
for growing up is awfuller
than all the awful things that ever were,
I will never grow up, never grow up,
never grow up, not me!
Peter led his young disciples in that song. With great gusto they proclaimed that they wanted to stay children forever. They could not imagine anything as bad as becoming adult.
The Peter Pan Syndrome has crept into the church. There are believers that want to treat Jesus like Santa Claus and only want to tell Him what they want, never the other way around. These Christians never want to grow up. An essential ingredient of Christianity is an insatiable desire to grow in maturity.
How’re ya doin’?
Tags: growth, maturity, Peter Pan