Keeping the Soil Fertile

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.  And he said to the vinedresser, 'Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none.  Cut it down.  Why should it use up the ground?'  And he answered him, 'Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure.  Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'  (Luke 13:6-9, ESV)

It's amazing to reflect on how easy it is for me to see the potential in others, but then how quickly  I tend to give up on myself.  When talking through a dry season with a friend, I can so clearly see how God is working in them to will and act according to His good purpose; but when processing through my own dry season, I lose sight of any progress and can quickly sink into a sort of spiritual apathy.  

I can't expect to be growing and able to produce much fruit if I'm not taking in the necessary nutrients!  Much like the vinedresser from the parable above, I have to tend to the soil first with the faith that the fruit will come.  Lack of fruit is the sign that something is wrong, but what is the appropriate response to that sign?

In times of spiritual apathy the easy choice is to focus on my lack of fruit (the lack of joy, the lack of caring, the lack of any wisdom to give to others in my life, etc.) and by so doing to let that discouragement drive me deeper into apathy, eventually leading to an ever-increasing cycle of despair, apathy, discouragement, and depression.  I need the reminder to 'tend to my soil,' as it were: to fill my soul and spirit by spending time with my Gardener.  My job is not to try and create something from nothing by striving to produce fruit without fertilized soil; my job is to take in the nutrients from my Father, Gardener, and Friend.  He is the One who created healthy trees to naturally produce good fruit, and He is the One who will work in my life to bring 'good fruit' in my life.  He is my Source.  If I am connected to Him, the dry season will pass, the apathy will lift, and the fruit will come.  

Is this to say that I have no responsibility in the process?  By no means!  I do have a responsibility!  But if I try to produce fruit, I'm in essence taking glory from God because I'm claiming that I can do what He does of my own strength.  Yes, Jesus tells His followers that "by their fruit" you can distinguish good teachers from bad.  But He doesn't say "by their fruit you will recognize them, so worry about the fruit you bear."  He says "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. [...] Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."  (John 15:1, 5, ESV)  The command is to "abide in me," 'find your nutrients in Me, let Me fill your soil with good things.'  I am to be intentional about 'tending the soil' and making sure it is full of good things rather than letting it fill up with unhealthy, contentious things.  Where does my mind drift when I don't have anything to occupy it?  What thoughts or feelings am I entertaining?  Am I choosing to devote my mental and emotional energy to things that are of God, or am I letting my sinful desires creep in and take up residence?  Am I seeking nutrients, or am I seeking to produce my own fruit?  My own fruit will inevitably sour and rot.  The fruit that God produces in me will last.  May I be a tree that naturally produces God-glorifying fruit.

Reflections on Lent

From what I can tell, the season of Lent often gets a bad reputation for being legalistic, contrived, and a contributor to a works-based righteousness mentality.  I agree that we need to avoid legalism and going through the motions without engaging at a heart level.  I agree that we need to avoid works-based righteousness and to avoid seeing Lent as a means to 'earn' our way to holiness.  But the same can be true of any of the spiritual disciplines we practice at any point in time!  We need to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

There are absolutely times that I don't feel like fasting, or reading my Bible, or praying, or worshiping, or any other of the spiritual disciplines.  There are times when it feels like I'm going through the motions and when the actions that I do are stale.  There are times when my relationship with God feels distant and I feel apathetic.  There are times when everything about following Christ feels empty.  There are times when my relationship with God is incredibly fulfilling and I feel so satisfied in Him!  There are times when all I want to do is rejoice in who He is and what He has done.  There are times when my relationship with Jesus brings me such amazing Joy!  Feelings can be great!

But Love is not a feeling.

My relationship with Christ is not based on how I feel, much in the same way that my relationship with family and loved ones is not based on how I feel toward them at any given moment.  If those relationships were based on feelings, I would give up every time things became difficult, or communication was stressful, or I was dissatisfied or disappointed or tired or hungry.  My feelings are fickle!  I can't base my human relationships on how I feel, so why is that mentality so prevalent in regards to a relationship with God?  

Love is not a feeling, it is a choice.  I choose to stick with my family through the hard times (and by the grace of God they stick with me!) knowing that those hard times do pass.  When I tell someone that I love them, I'm reaffirming my commitment to them and to the relationship between us.  When a relationship is damaged I might not necessarily feel like putting forth the effort to mend it, but unless something changes the relationship will continue to grow distant.  By putting my own feelings aside and meeting the other person wherever they may be, I'm showing them the depth of my love.  I'm not trying to prove that I love them, but I am acting out that love.

When I feel distant from God and that relationship feels empty, I need to discipline myself to continue to pray, to continue to read His Word, and to continue to seek Him.  It is the times when those feelings are gone that I need to press in and practice spiritual disciplines the most.  When those feelings are gone and I still press in to God, I'm saying (to myself almost more than to God) that He is more important to me than the way that I feel; that He is more constant than my immediate emotional state of being; that relationship with Him is worth the effort even if I don't see immediate results.  

God has already made the ultimate display of Love in the life, ministry, and sacrifice of Christ Jesus.  He has already met us where we were (and continues to meet us where we are) that we may be reconciled to Him and know His great Love.  Therefore, when I feel emptiness, when I feel distance, when I feel stale and apathetic toward God, it is because of the state of my own heart, not because He has failed me in some way.  It is because I have grown complacent, or prideful, or self-satisfied, or entitled, or any number of things that I gravitate toward naturally.  I need the outside structure of disciplines - of Lent - to keep my own feelings in their proper place.  

Lord, please use this season of Lent to draw me closer to You.  Remind me that my relationship with you is garnished by feelings, but that those feelings do not make up the substance of our relationship.  Remind me to seek You in the faith that You are always there and that You desire to be found by me.  I pray that You would draw me into deeper relationship with You, and that You would give me the grace to continue to seek You even when I don't feel like it.  I love You, Lord.

Lessons Learned in the Van

I've always loved road trips.  I love packing the car to best utilize every square inch of space.  I love putting together a snack box to treat myself to fresh fruit or veggies halfway down the road.  I even love the crappy gas station coffee as I watch the sun rise over the highway after driving for 3 hours.  I love making long playlists for different moods of the road:  mellow for the very beginning of the trip, but building quickly into golden classic rock songs to belt out as the highway stretches on to the horizon.  Or maybe I'm the only one who does that...that's okay too.

This past weekend, I got to drive down to El Paso with my church.  28 of us from our church piled into SROM's 2 new (used) 15-passenger vans early last week and started the 14-hour drive down south.  It reminded me a bit of the many hours I spent in similar vans on youth group trips in high school!  It was a great opportunity to get to connect with people in my church that I previously hadn't had a chance to get to know very well.  (It's amazing how quickly you can get to know people when you're crammed in the back seat together fighting the beginnings of feeling carsick.)

We arrived in Texas around 7:30pm on Thursday night and were warmly greeted by our church family in El Paso.  As exhausted as we were from the road trip, it was such a joy to connect and mingle with brothers and sisters in El Paso, from Kansas City, and from Fort Collins.  Even now as I reflect on it, our church family network is pretty amazing!  Ray, the pastor in El Paso, stood up to welcome us, orient us on the building we were staying in, and give us a basic schedule for the weekend (a very basic and very flexible schedule).  

Our Laramie church family had planned on going to Juarez to work with a children's ministry on Friday afternoon, which gave us time to solidify plans on Friday morning.  We also had an amazing time of prayer and worship on the roof of the school building!  It was amazing to get to look over the city of El Paso, and then turn and look over the border to Juarez.  We prayed for our time there and for the ministries on both sides of the Rio.  Piling again into our trusty vans, we crossed quickly over into Mexico and jumped in to help with the kids.  

I've done children's ministry in Hispanic cultures before, and every time I deeply wish I could speak Spanish!  But I'm also reminded of the love language of kids: playing.  We set up different games for the kids, had a puppet show, and painted faces, all with the heart to just love on the kids as much as we could!  I got to work at the face painting table, and quickly memorized the three most popular requests:  mariposa (butterfly), estrella (star), and corazón (heart).  As the afternoon passed, I slowly started remembering little bits and pieces of the Spanish I've collected from past trips...and it's amazing how quickly I forget them again!  

Saturday we split up and worked at two food distributions that the church in El Paso runs.  We spent the first two hours packing food into plastic bags for people to pick up as they came through.  The actual distribution is open from 10-12 the first Saturday of every month, and serves about 300 people at each location every month.  Along with caring for the physical needs of providing food, the church also offers to pray for each person that comes through.  Many smile, thank us for the food, and decline prayer.  But there are several who came through who eagerly accepted prayer.  Ray coached us to not fall into the trap of simply praying for their immediate situation (for a sickness, for provision of a job, for the healing of a family member).  He reminded us that the greatest thing we can offer them is Jesus, and it is Jesus who works all things (including immediate challenges and trials) together for His glory and His kingdom.

As we were packing the food, I kept thinking about Mary and Martha preparing for Jesus and his disciples.  I am a Martha by nature...I'm most comfortable being busy and packing the food and getting things done.  It's much harder for me to be Mary and to be content to simply sit at Jesus' feet and love as he loved:  without a schedule.  Once we were done packing and the people started coming in for the food distribution, there wasn't much for me to do other than smile and welcome them, and thank them for coming.  The entire time, my internal thoughts were running along the lines of "Is this really the best use of my time?  Aren't there other projects I could be working on?  What else can I be doing?"  But Jesus doesn't call us to always be doing.  He calls us to love the person in front of us.  And loving people means stopping myself from seeing people as another project to add to our missions trip to justify the long drive and the expense, and to look them in the eye and love them as Jesus loved them.  Without agenda, without impatience, without busyness.

Spending 14+ hours each way in a van provides ample time for reflection (another thing that I love about road trips).  As we were driving back on Sunday, I thought about what my agenda had been for the weekend, and what ended up being God's agenda.  The leadership in my church had much less of a project mentality, and much more of a person mentality.  We went to El Paso to connect with our church family and to support them in their ministry.  We didn't go so we could leave feeling like we had accomplished some sort of project; we didn't go because the church in El Paso needed us for any project of labor.  We went because they are our family, and we love them.