seasons

The heart of mankind is that place from which we tell ourselves what to think, say, and do.  It is our spring of reason.  The ancient prophet, Jeremiah, wrote the heart of mankind is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.  Jeremiah continued explaining that God, being the architect of the universe, made mankind's heart in such a way mankind would need to perpetually return to God to receive His words in order to keep that spring of reason pure.  When mankind's heart is too long without fellowship of the Architect, it spoils, receiving words from other sources it was not designed to receive from.

The sun was melting the snow today, and it caused me to ponder the seasons; how the earth responds to the cycles of weather that perform upon it.  I thought of the heart, how life moves over it, performing acts upon it.  Like the earth that does not get to choose what kind of weather it likes best, the heart of mankind has no power to control the circumstances that come upon it.  Hence, we must deal with death, heartache, toil, anger, sorrow, etc.  But we can choose how to respond to what comes our way.

Out of fellowship with the Architect too long, things begin to die.  Joy is the first to dissipate, falling like autumn leaves.  Shortly, life feels cold and bare because we are moved further away from Life-giving words.  The wind grows increasingly louder and unfriendly, purpose of life drains from our days.  We know we have need of change.  We know we have been missing something amid all our vain and summery pursuits.  After having seen there is no end to foolishness, yet chasing it still, when we finally come to our senses so far, far away from home, it as though we are dead, but we live.  Morbidity creeps into our thoughts from whispers of those watching, judging.  That is poison to the spring inside us, and we feel it leaking sorrow, anger, and despair.  We are now walking around, working, talking to our families and church friends, eating and drinking.  But we feel dead inside.

A hard north wind pushes itself upon us, and we draw in to try and savor what remaining warmth we have.  But our worldly comforters are insufficient, and the warmth they provided is snuffed out as the Architect's words come into our lives as snow falling upon the hardened December ground.  The flakes are beautiful; every one unique, every one true, every one of them sticking to our cold, cold heart.  These truthful flakes pile upon us, removing all warmth, freezing our hearts even harder.  We cannot receive the words right now, cannot bring it into our hearts because its truth cuts, hurts.  So we leave it laying over top of our hearts like a blanket of insulation, keeping the things of the world, we liked so much before, from getting in.  Sometimes they do get in.  We let them, but we find them too bitter to enjoy, even putrid.

Days pass into weeks, weeks into months that drag on so slowly.  We want to open up and receive the words, but we still cannot.  Finally, after what seems like a millennium, we find our hearts crying softly to God.  The winds change and lighten, blowing soft warmth over our frozen cocoon.  The once icy flakes of the Architect's words begin to melt.  The trickle of watery truth breaks through the barrier of hardness, as rain through the softening March sod.  It trickles into us, knowing where we need it to go, flowing to the damaged, infected places.  Our hardness dissipates, we open up, receiving more and more of the Blessed Drink.  It softens, lubricates, and begins to penetrate seeds that were buried long ago, and they burst open, pushing their leafy heads up toward the warmth of the Son.

It is a miracle.  Spring, that seemed so incredibly impossible in the December of our lives, and January, and especially February, with its ripened ice blue, Spring has happened.  Truth that came as stinging snow has melted from the warmth of His love.  We had to know the cold, the loneliness.  We had to feel the full freezing pain of the truth.  It was essential to experience it so that we could most joyously rediscover the beauty, the strength, the nourishment, the purpose of God in us-the hope of Glory!  And most of all, we had to have a deeper sense of our utterly desperate need of Him, His wonderful fellowship, the counsel of His wisdom, so that those seeds that were planted will grow into beauty that pleases His heart.  For we are created in His image and likeness to know Him, to please Him, and to enjoy Him, and to be enjoyed by Him forever. 

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved, For You are my praise.  Jeremiah 17.14