Snow in April. Not unheard of in our area but unusual for so late in the month. I mean, next week, the month of May begins – you know, the emergence of May flowers. And yet, regardless of the date on our organized calendars, the snow flurries spotted yesterday and freezing temperatures last night seemingly sucked the life out of these plants who were just trying to bloom and live. And how often can we relate.
So many times, in my personal life, things have not gone as I thought they should or would. Timing was delayed. Or the time I was planning on never came. The blossoms I expected started to emerge only to get knocked down by something I didn’t see coming – and truthfully, didn’t want. At these times, I would cry out, “God, it’s not supposed to be like this.” I cried that out in silent prayer yesterday as I heard yet another church member talk about how they were done with the division the United Methodist denomination and that they were leaving.
With every article that is posted about what the left plans to do or the right plans to do, I feel the icy sharpness of division where the warmth of the Holy Spirit flame should be. With every snide comment creeping out from behind closed doors into a world needing hope not hate, life is being sucked out of our mission to love God and love neighbor.
The winds of disagreement can and will knock us down, but we are forgetting a key element. We can remain standing, rooted in the same soil. The plants in a garden do it all the time. Each doing its part to bring beauty into a world made ugly by evil and sin. Diversity is not the enemy. Diversity is actually what brings us balance . Yet, to listen and live together we are called to honor and respect each other in our differences as we share common garden ground. Eden’s garden of beginnings. Gethsemane’s garden of transition. Revelation’s garden of promise fulfilled.
Remember the times of childhood when the playground seesaw, with a seat on opposite ends, invited us to a dance of give and take to create balance and joy. And yet, it never failed that someone would get tired of the balance of the dance and quit, leaving the other person to land hard and often hurt on the ground.
New Testament writer James had seen blooming flowers struck down and seesaws crash among those who were trying to live into the joy of the Lord. In Chapter 1, beginning verse 2, he offers us the reason:
Dear brothers and sisters when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. James 1:2-4 NLT
Give endurance a chance to grow us up even further.
When I cried out, “God, the hate – the heartache – the hurt – the sorrow – it’s not supposed to be like this,” God directed my attention to the screen of the radio in my car which displayed the words, “God’s Not Done.” And the Spirit spoke into my spirit to take heart for the situation, the concern, even my life and my beloved denomination are still a work in progress. For the adverse and unexpected create the opportunity to accept that God is God and we are not. The Tauren Wells’ song reminded me that for every period I think needs to be placed in life, it is often replaced by a comma for God’s sovereignty has the final say.
Those flowers that fell in the unexpected late frost today find life in a bulb planted under the ground. Reminds me of the line of Natalie Sleeths’ Hymn of Promise that says, “unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.”
This is the promise of the gospel, the seed of hope that has survived for centuries.
In the words of Eugene Peterson’s, the Message Paraphrase, the Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 8:18-21
That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
You are right. Life’s not supposed to be like this. Thankfully, God’s not done.