Wednesday, February 15, 2017

It's About Time!


Do you ever feel like you have worked really hard on something and you just aren't seeing results?  Do you think to yourself, "I've done my part, why doesn't it work out the way I have it planned?"

I have been motivated lately by the verses in Psalm 1 that say (Common English Bible Translation),

(Happy are those who) love the Lord’s Instruction,
    and they recite God’s Instruction day and night!
They are like a tree replanted by streams of water,
    which bears fruit at just the right time
    and whose leaves don’t fade.
        Whatever they do succeeds.

There are two parts of this Psalm that keep mulling around in my head.  The first is the word replanted.    Our family certainly knows what it means to be replanted -- our roots were down deep into the metaphorical soil of Minnesota territory.  Children, grandchildren, friends, family.  And yet God has replanted us here and we can see His hand in that every day.

The second are the words "at just the right time."  As you know, we have been sewing into the lives of our children now for over 20 years.  WE WANT RESULTS.   Some of them we can see great improvement in their lives.  Others, we hurt for them because they seem to make so little progress.  But the truth is that the fruit we will bear will be at just the right time.

As I was making movie for Bart yesterday for Valentine's Day, I was in tears with the idea that we could have missed the joys that are in here if we had given up.  If we had said, "THAT'S IT.  WE ARE DONE, we would have missed it.   the video was done quickly, on my phone, and doesn't have all of our kids in it, but it is certainly a small reputation of the life that God has given us because we did not throw in the towel because we weren't seeing results.

So, I encourage you that if you are in the middle of the sewing of the seed,  or the planting, or the watering, or any of the other icky gardening responsibilities one has when growing a tree, that there will be fruit.

at just the right time!






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