Ripe Harvest

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for a harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life. . . (John 4:35-36)

Once I asked a class if they believed that the “fields” are still “ripe unto harvest.” I was surprised that the answer was mixed. No one felt sure that it was either way, and several felt that the Gospel had been preached for so long and in so many places that the fields might actually be shrinking. I was disappointed because I was convinced that Jesus’ words are even more urgent today. The whiteness of the fields was a statement and an assurance to the disciples that even in Samaria, where they were resting, hearts and minds were ready to receive the the Word of God. If that were somehow no longer true,we would all be in despair when we looked at “the fields.”

Soon after this discussion Jack and I visited Caprock Canyon with some friends. As we drove to the canyon we passed a large cotton field that looked withered and dead as the result of a drought. I felt a regret for the farmer and for the potential that such a large field had held.

We stayed in the canyon all day and in the late afternoon headed home. The sun was still bright as we passed the cotton field and I could hardly believe my eyes. I asked, “Is this the same way we came this morning?” “Yes,” our friend , who was driving answered, “why?” I said, “Look at that field!” In that one day the cotton had burst open . I stared and stared, and the others in the truck were amazed, too. “Are you sure this is the same field?” I asked. “Yes, yes. It’s just that the cotton has bloomed in the one day, and what a sight!” said our friend.

For me it was more than just “a sight.” I couldn’t help thinking that my earlier disappointment had been healed. I believed with all my heart that the fields are really, truly, ready for harvest, and that they have been ready for more than two thousand years, and even in that time some “reapers” have known it and have reaped a harvest and a crop for eternal life. Thanksgiving is a time for reaping friendships and relationships, and for celebrating the harvest of souls who acknowledge Christ’s offer of eternal life. I will never forget the sight of a cotton field almost blindingly white in the sun, so very ready for harvest.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love in Him,

Prue

The Christian holidays bring us busyness unlike any other in the year. It’s as if we know that we need to get on a train to a new destination in our relationship with God, and so we hurry to the station, but when we arrive, there are so many distractions, that we could even miss the train.

We know that the “still small voice” (1Kings 12: 11-12) is speaking to us, but if you let them, the much louder noises of the season are capable of drowning it out. Arriving at the station we find shops and attractions that can be irresistible unless we remember to expect that voice.

When Elijah heard that voice, it conveyed to him information that he could not have known before, as well as a role and a mission for himself in the unfolding history of Israel. Elijah received confirmation of his close relationship with God, and specific instructions for his ministry. He also received a sense of kinship with a holy God, that enabled him to persevere in fulfilling his calling. We all need the still small voice, but especially at holiday time. The still small voice engaged Elijah in a conversation. It was not a monologue, but a question and answer. The noise of the world, however, is insistent and pervasive.

Thanksgiving is full of chatter, often joyful, re-uniting chatter, but Thanksgiving also invites reflection. Once on the train to the holidays there is room for reflection, but the station is still distracting until we get on the the train. When the train doors close, and it starts to move, we must settle down and wait. The psalmist wrote, He says, “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm46:10)

The buying and selling is finished and events are planned. The priceless time of remembering and listening comes naturally on the train. This is God’s desire for Thanksgiving and for Christmas: time alone with each of us. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with wordless groans. (Romans 8:26)

We become like children when we finally enter the train, find our seat, and remember the One who called the very journey into being, the One behind and within the celebration and the holidays themselves.

Love in Him,

Prue

Nell, a Christian friend of mine who had many times been on mission trips, especially to disaster areas, once said to me that she knew that God had forgiven her for her past, before she had been a believer, but she knew that she had sometimes sinned against God Himself, and so she could not forgive herself. Her sin, whatever it was, weighed upon her conscience, and she could not escape it. No amount of my talking and listening with her ever change her mind, that I could see.

I believe that there must be many people who “hug “ their sins in an embrace of regret and even sorrow, and I realized that I had been one , too, from time to time. The scriptures, though, leave no room for regret or self blame. They make it clear that clothing ourselves in regret is like putting on a heavy armor to resist the Spirit of God from entering and removing the stain: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything. (1 John 3:20)

The apostle John witnessed the resurrected Jesus and knew, as eleven of the disciples did, that God had reversed the monstrous evil of the cross, and that a new day had arrived in the relationship of God and human beings. That which we could not even imagine has occurred, and those who are willing to grasp the hand of the living Christ and drop their armor altogether, can experience this reality even thousands of years after the events.

God’s forgiveness, and His reach into human hearts was displayed even in the Old Testament. The psalmist wrote these words: Whom have I in heaven but you? And beside you I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25) Even before the appearance of Jesus on earth, the psalmist recognized the great power of God that was greater than the failings of our hearts. It is a hope that requires the abandoning of our own selves to receive God’s better Spirit of redemption.

Corrie Ten Boom famously wrote, “God takes our sins and buries them in the deepest part of the sea and then posts a sign: ‘No Fishing!’” We can spend our lives fishing for regrets, or we can give them all to God, who knows us better than we know ourselves; and we have a brother who has opened the way for us to our Father God. He, too, knows everything.

Love in Him,

Prue

During my growing up years, our grandmother lived with us periodically. She always tried to make herself useful, but we really loved her for her stories, and some of her most endearing gifts were the cookies she baked in the afternoon just before we came home from school. When my brother and sisters and I walked into the house we could smell fresh cookies most days. They would be laid out on the kitchen table. On the way home we speculated about whether they would be molasses, sour cream, or chocolate with white icing. Each of us had our favorite, but we were actually just hungry, and we liked all her flavors.

My mother often reminded us that not all children had fresh cookies after school, and that “some day” we would appreciate this gift. I wondered what she meant. Isn’t eating a cookie the only way to appreciate it? And weren’t we doing that? Afterwards we went outside to play, or stayed in to do homework. Usually we thanked Grandma. I never imagined what “some day” meant, or what would happen to make me “appreciate” more than I did that day.

The Bible is full of references to a “day”in the future that is called “that day.” It is a “day” when wrong will be made right: The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled, and human pride brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. (Isaiah 2:11) Jesus also spoke to his disciples of a “day” ahead when God’s presence would be known, and the disciples would have a new, direct access to Jesus’ Father God. Jesus makes Isaiah’s words personal and real for the disciples: In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and believed that I came from God.” (John 16:26-27) St. Paul, who never saw Jesus before the the resurrection, wrote to his friend Timothy about himself, and about “that day”: I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. (2 Timothy 1:12)

In today’s world I can only imagine baking cookies almost every school day in time for the grandchildren to have them when they get home. I begin to have an inkling of what my mother meant by saying “Some day” I would understand.

Jesus speaks openly to his disciples about a “day” when their relationship with God will change. It will be characterized by a Father’s love, and it will draw them closer to Jesus himself. In “that day” is a promise to each of us, as well.

Love in Him,

Prue

When I first read in the book of Hebrews that “The law made nothing perfect, and a better hope is introduced.” (Hebrews 7:19), I wondered how “Hope” could in any way be “better. Does “hope” come in “good,” “ better,” and “best”? Is “hope” even measurable at all? But when I read on about the contrast that the writer was drawing between the faith of the Hebrews under the direction and discipline of Moses, and the relationship of believers to their God in the light of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, I saw that there were indeed two kinds of “Hope,” and that the distinguishing difference is the difference between time and eternity.

Almost everyone on earth experiences hope for happy outcomes of events and experiences and relationships; and almost everyone ignores the promise in the Bible that there is an entire life, without ending, of grace that fills our hopes with joy. We believe in short term peace and happiness, but “eternity” is dismissed as somehow irrelevant, in spite of the evidence in scripture of another life that happens not to have an end: As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the son and in the Father. And this is what He promised us—eternal life. ( John 2:24)

Is it because eternity seems incomprehensible, that we turn away and say we have too much to do with the here and now to contemplate eternity. Yet, God Himself, and Jesus our friend and brother, are both eternal. Their lives were extended to us at Jesus’ resurrection. This is what he talked about , when he said, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the son and believes in him shall have eternal life. ( John 6:40) It’s God’s eternal life he is offering to those who believe in His son.

The Greeks and Romans valued eternal life so much that they made up stories that allowed them to believe that people could become constellations, thereby receiving a form of eternity; but God, who was and is and will be eternal, gave Himself in giving His son, that we might receive true eternity, not as another “thing,” but as our selves: Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known, but we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

We shall be like the eternal son of God. It is indeed a better hope.

Love in Him,

Prue

The first time that I can remember ever being really, really thirsty was in a gym class in seventh grade. We had had a “work out” involving apparatus and mats, and finally a “few” laps around the gym. We were all sitting on the floor around the gym teacher, and to this day I have no idea what she was saying, as I was fantasizing a cold glass of water, and then I thought of a class of 7UP. It occurred to me that this might be the way that people living in deserts felt when they ran out of water. I would have been desperate, except that I remembered that there was a drinking fountain on the way to the girls’ locker room.

Thirst is a compelling sensation that takes he place of all other interests when it is strong. Isaiah the prophet spoke God’s words of invitation when he wrote: Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come buy and eat!. . . Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good. . . Give ear and come to me; listen that you may live.”(Isaiah 55:1&3) Thirst can be an all consuming need when we are dry; and relieving thirst is a great fulfillment of our need and desire.

Hundreds of years after God’s words to Isaiah, Jesus himself spoke of thirst, and the only real way to quench it: On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. (John 7:37-39) This is one of the strongest metaphors for God’s relationship to His people and for our relationship to Him.

On the cross, Jesus himself experienced his own need for the words from Isaiah. It’s even more poignant in the context of Jesus’ earlier words: Jesus said, “I thirst”. . . and when he had receive the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished!” With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28) Physical thirst is perhaps the closest picture of spiritual thirst. Jesus thirsted in response to his Father’s call to “come all you who are thirsty”. All of this was displayed in front of his mother and a few others, including John, for their benefit as well as ours, that we may follow the stream and know that it leads to the living water in Jesus and our Father God.

Love in Him,

Prue

My great aunt, Vina Fish, once owned and operated a Tea House on main street in a small farming town in upstate New York. At one time or another, virtually all of the women of the family, cousins of mine, as well as my grandmother and my mother, all worked at the Tea House. People would drive all the way from New York City for Sunday dinner there. Auntie’s two specialties were chocolate cake with four inch meringue icing, and Parker-house style homemade rolls. Her pies also attracted customers.

Once when Auntie was visiting us for one of our birthdays, my mother served rolls, and everyone exclaimed that they were so very delicious. I hadn’t tasted one; but, thinking that they were rolls my mother had bought at the grocery, I said loudly, “These may be good, but they are not as good as Aunties’ rolls!” Dead silence settled on the table and my mother tried every way to apologize to Auntie, as the rolls really were ones she had brought for the occasion. I looked around the table and saw embarrassment on everyone’s face except Auntie’s. She looked at me and smiled. I told her that I hadn’t eaten one yet, and so I didn’t really know how good they were. I knew that she understood, and I didn’t think I had hurt her feelings, but my mother was mortified, and I was relieved when dinner was finished. Later my mother asked me how I could have made such a mistake. My only consolation was Auntie’s smile, and I wondered how everyone else could have missed it. Auntie’s smile conveyed to me the peace that I needed.

St. Paul wrote, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. . . For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21) Paul writes of the Spirit of God as the solution to all the suffering in the world. Throughout history the saints have lived and died in the knowledge of the truth of Paul’s words. Paul lifts us out of frustration by telling the works of God’s Holy Spirit: The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people. . .” (Romans 8:26-27) I felt sure that Auntie Fish understood that I was trying to complement her rolls. I was also sure that she still loved me, and that we weren’t going to be strangers. God knows how to use one warm smile for His Kingdom.

Love in Him,

Prue

Katrina was a pre-teen girl living in a Russian orphanage when she was adopted by an American family. They had one daughter, and wanted another for companionship. When they met Katrina, she was bald; her head had been shaved, the cure for lice in the orphanage. Katrina was relieved to know that she would have a real home, and the family was excited to welcome her. In America she had her own room with clothes in the closet and a chest of drawers. In Russia she had received a Christmas box from a Christian group, and it contained a “slinky.” It was the only toy she had ever had, and at first she carried it around with her . She thought that God had sent it to her.

One day in her new home, Katrina, who could understand English and speak it somewhat, received a phone call from her adoptive grandmother, who told her that she, the grandmother, would be coming to the house to pick her up and take her shopping. Katrina didn’t know what to say, but her new sister said, “Say Yes!”, which Katrina did. When she hung up, her sister said, “When Grandma calls, you ALWAYS say Yes!” Katrina wondered why, until Grandma arrived and said , “We’ll have lunch, too, and Katrina got in the car with her to go shopping, a thing she had never experienced. Grandma was wealthy and adored Katrina; and the packages began to pile up. The family had tried not to “spoil” Katrina, but Grandma had not received the message.

Years later, when Katrina had finished high school, and she was asked what she had learned about the U.S. A., she said, “I learned that when Grandma calls, you always say, ‘Yes!’” Not all adoptions are successful, but I couldn’t help thinking that Katrina was adopted for all the right reasons. Her adoptive family felt the need and desire for another child, and were ready to make a lifetime commitment to a foreign child in their home.

The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself. (Leviticus 19:34) When Moses brought the Israelites to the very border of the Promised land, he sent out twelve spies to evaluate the place and decide how and where to approach it. When they returned to Moses only two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, said, Yes! This is a good land that the Lord is giving to us! (Deuteronomy 1:25)Nevertheless, the people’s fears prevented them from going forward, and so they wandered for forty years until they were able to cross the Jordan and receive God’s gift. Only Joshua and Caleb of the original twelve spies survived to enter the Promised Land.

When God calls,ALWAYS say Yes!

Love in Him,

Prue

Two of the United States’ founding fathers went together on a vacation tour of England while they wee stationed there on U.S. Government assignments in 1786. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both enjoyed gardening and farming, as well as both being fans of Shakespeare, and so they stopped at Stratford- upon- Avon to visit Shakespeare’s house. In his biography of John Adams, David McCullough wrote of the visit: “Told that an old wooden chair in a corner by the chimney was where the bard himself had sat, the two American tourists cut off souvenir chips, this ‘according to the custom,’ Adams was quick to note “ (John Adams, by David McCullough, pg. 359)

When I read this I was astonished that two men with the extraordinary vision to help shape the forming of an entirely new federal government in the world, would lack the simple vision of the fate of Shakespeare’s chair from visiting tourists. Adams and Jefferson were both great men, but I suppose even great men may lose some of their perspective when on vacation.

The devotion, time, energy, and personal resources each man poured into first the independence of the colonies, and then the formation of a new government, supplied much of the bedrock of the new nation. They remained friends until after they had returned to the U.S, where politics eventually separated them and they stopped communicating with each other until near the end of their lives. They both died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which they had both signed.

The Pharisees asked Jesus, “Which is the greatest commandment?” Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind… and the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-38) For all the great achievements of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both of them presidents of the United States at critical, developmental times in the nation’s history; in their old age, they both valued the friendship they had once enjoyed among their greatest treasures.

Politics is one of the biggest, most pervasive of distractions from our Father God’s commandment. It concerns the exterior of our lives while the love of God lives in the interior,manifesting itself in friendships and selflessness. By the grace of God, Jefferson and Adams lived long enough to be reconciled and leave a heritage of that grace.

Love in Him,

Prue

At a time when Israel had fallen almost hopelessly away from their God, Jeremiah spoke God’s words to them: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom, or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 9:23-24) At first I was surprised that Jeremiah spoke of having the understanding to “know” God, and of God expecting His people to “know” Him, even before He sent His son. But then I remembered a man who lived the very words that God spoke to Jeremiah about six hundred years before Jeremiah recorded them for the people of his time.

Boaz was a land owner and farmer in Bethlehem in Judah. He owned a large property and employed a number of workers. One day he rode into his fields and found a new follower of his reapers: Boaz asked the overseers of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?” (Ruth 2:5) Even before this exchange, Boaz had greeted his workers with, “The Lord be with you!” to which they responded , “The Lord Bless you!” (“Ruth 2:4) This was a salute in the name of Israel’s God, perhaps the first that Ruth had heard since arriving in Bethlehem. Boaz extended his protection and even favor to Ruth while she gleaned. Boaz, like David, was a man after God’s own heart.

The story of Ruth is a st0ry o f rescue for hope and a future. It’s the unfolding of a soul, Ruth, to find the long awaited fulfillment of her life, and the lives of Naomi and of Boaz himself. Ruth’s choice to travel with Naomi from Moab to Israel after the deaths of both of their husbands, was an act of loyalty that brought Ruth to the attention of Boaz and displayed her character of devotion. Ruth remained obedient to Naomi in visiting Boaz to ask for his protection to fulfill a rule in Israel that a deceased man’s nearest relative should marry the widow. Boaz, who loved kindness, justice, and righteousness, married Ruth and they had a son named Obed, who grew up to be David’s grandfather.

About six hundred years after Jeremiah spoke the words of God, the apostle Paul wrote,

“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 6:14)

Paul knew Jeremiah’s words well; and Boas,Ruth, Jeremiah, and Paul were living evidence of God’s truth to His people. These each received that truth and knew God.

Love in Him,

Prue