The eyes of all look to you,
    and you give them their food in due season.
You open your hand,
    satisfying the desire of every living thing.
The Lord is just in all his ways,
    and kind in all his doings.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth. – Psalm 145:15-18

Most of you are aware that I often refer to myself as “a work in progress.” Life is like that. Faith is like that too. Pretty much everything we’re involved in has that organic quality, where life, death, renewal, restoration, rebirth, setbacks, regrouping, and more seem to all be part of how we define being. Moving forward; taking a step back; stumbling, getting back on our feet, never ever quite standing still.

It helps a lot that we live in a more agricultural setting now. Evidences of the cycle of life are right in front of us, constantly.

Can’t Miss Example:

So Thursday evening, while Rebekah was at an elders’ meeting, challenging and encouraging our church to grab the future with two hands, and believe, and move forward with the confidence that we serve a God who expects nothing less of us, I opened the front door to check on something in the garden and tripped over two boxes of fresh vegetables.

Corn, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon, bell peppers, and more – probably some potatoes and some onions too. At Christmas it’s Santa; around Easter there’s the bunny thing; then in the summertime something shows up on your doorstep and it’s Larry.

Fresh dirt clings to the edges of some of the produce. Essentially it’s all still alive – I think if I listen real close I can hear the tomatoes breathing. Maybe that’s an exaggeration. But I do know – and this is with absolute certainty – that the impetus of life is strong here, it’s real, and it will have its way.

It’s good to be reminded of who holds the earth in its orbit, where the sun gets its light, how completely the harvest is out of our hands, the fact that God sets the seasons, how all growth and life, and possibility, and promise is held in the hands of the Creator.

And yet we strive, and we worry, and we push, and we forget to rest in the surety of the Maker, and the promise of the Good News.

But sometimes – constantly, really – it is far better to rest in the knowledge that God is not only good, and faithful, and gracious, and full with mercy, but up to something too – always up to something new….

Peace, and more peace – DEREK