Shorelines Near and Far

A day off from work, time in my pocket and Starbucks coffee in my cup holder, I was off for my favorite spot in the park. Crowded with fishermen most of the summer, I wondered what this day would hold in terms of congestion at the lake's edge. Praying under my breath that I'd have the place to myself, I then held the same as I rounded the last curve and came upon the parking area.

“Not too bad, “ I muttered to myself. It was about half full, and a quick glance to my left revealed a lone picnic table unoccupied, although there were a fair number of people casting lines farther down the spit. I gathered up my belongings and hurried to lay claim to it. As I drew near, however, I understood why other people had given it a wide berth.

Placed close to the water's edge for the convenience of the many anglers that frequent the place, the water that lapped the shoreline a foot or so away from it's nearest side was not a pretty sight. With too little rain in recent weeks to break it up and distribute it more evenly, the remnants of summer fun at the state park now collected and washed up on the dirt at my feet. Brown globs of oil from boat motors trapped all manner of muck and mire, a collection that likely smelled as bad as it looked. 

Glad for once that my sense of smell was inactive, I looked desperately down the shoreline for another place to sit. Boxes of tackle, discarded sweatshirts and now-empty bags of fast food meals covered the other tables already claimed by sportsmen busy about their work. A huge rock bearing a memorial plaque had been my seat on previous occasions, but it's rounded top left no spot to set my books, my phone, and the all-important cup of coffee. Today I needed room to spread out. With a sigh I laid my burden down on the wooden planks farthest away from the mess and sat down.

I felt the tension of the preceding days gradually lift off of me as I settled into my spot, a reminder of why I'm repeatedly drawn to that location. The peace and quiet and natural beauty of the place is a balm to my soul and salve for my stressed out nerves. I lifted my coffee cup to my lips and looked out across the lake at the vista spread out before me, noting the swimming area to my left, the wooded hills rounding down to the water's edge on the opposite side, even a glimpse of the lodge way off to my right. Boats slipped soundlessly by as an occasional heron or gull winged its hello in passing. If I kept my eyes on the beauty of the distant shorelines, the mess immediately in front of me bothered me less. With a start I realized that that was what I was there to see that morning; therein lay God's message to me that day.

Many of us are likewise drawn repeatedly to a place, perhaps a church, a relationship, a home situation, or even a calling that our hearts can't escape from. Immediate circumstances may make the current situation seem unbearable, as day after day and in wave after wave the garbage of other people's actions wash up to where we're sitting. Desperately we look about us for another place to go – a new church to attend, a new love to find, another living situation to move into, another avenue of ministry – only to find that there's no place to go; we seem to be constantly crowded out by other people and their problems. Yet the truth is that we enter any new situation the same way we left the old, carrying our baggage around with us, desperately looking for a place to set it down and spread our wings. All of us are looking for perfection and are surprised at times to find that the spot God has for us is far less than that.

Perhaps the solution, then, is simply to lift our eyes...to overlook the negative that surrounds us and soak in the hope and peace and beauty that lies beyond it. Maybe the answer is to keep our eyes on the distant shoreline and let God work His will in us..to change me, to soften your heart, to eliminate some of that which we've been carrying around with us...to lighten our load.

I did that that day. When my coffee was gone, I set down the empty cup and opened the books I'd brought with me. I turned my journal to a new page and lifted the pen to my hand. I read and I studied and I listened...I even laughed a time or two. I talked to God and He talked to me. When we were through I stood up and looked about me in sudden amazement – my car now sat alone in the parking lot, and the once-crowded shoreline now was as empty as could be! I had been so focused on the pages before me and the Voice that spoke to my heart that I no longer noticed the dirty shoreline nearby, nor the movement of the people originally crowding me, as one by one they packed up and left!

I learned some things that day that had little to do with what I read in my books or wrote in my notebook. If I buckle down and do the work that God's planned for me, in whatever situation it is that He has planted me, I'll be surprised to later look around and realize that the conditions which distressed me so originally didn't actually bother me after all, or now no longer disturb me. I have changed, and that was His plan all along.

The perfection I long to find in my life situations, God is more interested in developing in me.

“Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke on you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”

(Matthew 11:28-30 MKJV)

Strange Change

November is upon us, and change is in the air.

We’re reminded of that fact officially as we move our clocks back this first weekend of the month. The presidential election just after that has filled the airwaves with debates, commercials and promises of a shift in one direction or another in the political arena as the chair in the Oval Office is once again up for grabs. Even the vacillating temperatures outside contribute to the unsettling upheaval of things as we’ve known them recently, as the onset of winter rains and whipping winds rip the last of the leaves off the trees, filling the world we walk through with their communal downward dance.

Surely the leaves drop and the clocks fall back and elections occur regularly as scheduled, year after year after year. But this year I’m noticing some strange transformations happening in me, in the thoughts that fill my mind and the activities that fill my days. My personal colors seem to be changing, and things I’ve held on to tightly for seasons past are now dropping at my feet and being simply kicked aside as I move on with my life. Individually they are as insignificant as one leaf on a tree filled with the same, but when they all start falling at once, it causes me to look up and wonder what on earth is going on.

Like I said, they are little things. Like the Saturday morning I ran into town after a big family breakfast to knock some errands off my to-do list. Amazingly I found a parking space in front of the gift store I needed to visit and went inside. Business done, I came back out and looked longingly at the Starbucks franchise that was directly across the street. Although I had time on my hands and a gift card in my purse, it was the calorie expenditure I couldn’t afford on that particular day…so I got in my car and drove away! No earthquake split the street before me and the sky didn’t fall, but in my own personal world, that moment was HUGE.

One weekend later family tradition found us at a small local festival, walking a street lined with vendors selling food and hand-crafted items of all kinds. When it comes to purses I’m a firm believer in the bigger, the better. I stash everything from an occasional bottle of pop to my laptop in mine, and thus I never buy small bags. Yet that day I bought one that was flat and thin and hardly wider than my fingers could stretch. Doubtful that I’d make it a week without switching back to a bigger version, I dubbed it as an experiment, to see if I could function without carrying my life around with me in my hands all the time. I’ve had to make a few adjustments in the way I do things, but overall it seems to be working.

Actually, I would have walked right on by that vendor’s booth had it not been for one piece of fabric on an otherwise denim blue bag that sucked me in. None of the other bags hanging around it interested me in the least, but the autumn leaf print on the quilted border on the one caught my eye and hooked me, perhaps the way God hoped the changing colors of my daily routines would catch my attention and look to Him for an explanation.

Clearly I’m experiencing a paring down, and not just on the digital read of the bathroom scale and the amount of clutter I carry around. Things I’ve told myself were absolute necessities I’m now suddenly able to put aside and adapt to life without. But to what purpose? And is it just for a season, or are these lifestyle changes of longer duration?

I think back to when Jesus sent out the seventy-two disciples and told them not to take along a purse, bag or sandals. Later He asked them if they had lacked anything during that time, and they answered that they made out just fine. Perhaps the purpose was to teach the lot of us that our joy and peace as well as our daily sustenance are not found in the things we consume or carry about in this life, but in the One who carries us. He frees us from the burden of our own provision that we might concentrate instead on Kingdom purposes and His business.

I’m reminded of the passage in John 15 in which Jesus said He is the Vine, and we are the branches. He explained that every branch of the vine that bears no fruit is cut off, and those that are fruitful are pruned for greater production. Surely there are aspects of my existence that bear no fruit in the heavenly realm; they use resources of money, time and energy but nothing of eternal value comes out of them, and so they must be eliminated. Meanwhile God prunes and refines the spiritually productive areas in my life so that they can be even more effective. .

Throughout His years of ministry on earth Jesus was constantly looking about Him for fruit. He looked not only for figs on trees, but faith in His followers, and every time He ran into somebody with even a mustard-sized portion of it His eyes lit up and His heart beat a little faster…the moment was an occasion for joy. And even yet today He looks for love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and self-control …the fruits of the spirit… to be evident in the lives of you and me. Oh that He could likewise find in our hearts and lives a similar reason to rejoice!

Recently I mentioned to my husband that I’d made my last trip to the state park near us for the year. When my he questioned me on it I tried to explain that the brilliance of the fall color is over for the year, the leaves are on the ground,  and the bare stems are simply depressing to me. Already I find myself looking forward to spring, when there‘s new life bursting up from the ground and out of every branch tip.

In much the same way I feel a little disturbed at the changes taking place within me. It seems at times that there’s an awful lot of loss. But neither does God like the sight of a barren life that bears no fruit. So I welcome the spiritual pruning and cutting away that’s going on now if it means that days from now God will similarly be able to rejoice in the springtime of my soul and delight at the sight of the fruit that He finds there.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
(John 15:11 NIV)