Category Archives: Uncategorized

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When Roots Run Deep

I walk almost every day. It’s a habit, a need even, a bi-product of many decades of daily runs. Linear bipedal locomotion is my time for thinking. Deep thinking. For whatever reason, my focus can be so intense that it’s hard to pull out of it. One of my sons long ago took note and conceived a diagnosis for my condition: EAD. Excessive Attention Disorder.

There is no better place to let my EAD go full-blown than on a track. No distractions. No cars. No routes to be mindful of.

This summer they are bringing the local 1950’s cinder track into the twenty-first century. When it’s done, I won’t be surprised if while I’m in full-blown EAD, the springy all-weather surface converts my walking to running. Wearing running tights instead of jeans did that to me one spring day. Lost in thought, I ran a half mile before I realized I was running for the first time in months.

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When the equipment is parked, and the crews have gone home, I circle. And think. And listen for God’s direction on whatever life happened to send my way that day.

Meanwhile…

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The track has so far changed from cinder to dirt, to mud, back to dirt, to loose gravel, and recently to packed gravel. It took me till the packed gravel stage to surface from a day’s deep thinking and notice…

the roots.

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Long, long roots forging vertical lines in the dirt. Two to three feet deep. A perfect cross section. The anatomy of grass.

Which caused me to do some deep thinking about roots. They sure are long. Much longer than I realized. No wonder lawns recover after drought, scorching heat, or subzero temps.

And they sure are vertical. Aren’t they ever tempted to change it up a bit and wander horizontally or diagonally? If my thinking habits were roots, they’d be meandering and getting tangled quite a lot. My roots may even go skyward — any good ideas up there? Any solutions over yonder?

Grass roots are so … singularly focused. Down. Deep. Where the water is. No wonder roots are used so often as metaphors in the Bible.

I believe there’s something universal in the allegory of the roots. Something for all of us, regardless of our backgrounds or beliefs. Take away the faith and cultural lenses I’m looking through, and you take away yours. When it comes to basics, I wouldn’t be surprised to see our roots run parallel.

Looking for water. Striving for stability, sustainability. Needing truths. Preferring love. Requiring hope.

According to roots, we should ignore the non-grounded options in the air — they won’t do us any good. And we should try not to compete or entangle by growing horizontally or diagonally, all willy-nilly. If grass roots are able to take the efficient, equitable, straight course to what they need, we sure as grass roots should be able to do it, too.

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First published on July 9, 2014.

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To Know His Voice

The Good Shepherd and His Sheep 

John 10: 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

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Revive Your Dreams

When your memories are greater than your dreams, you’ve already begun to die. – Eugene May

A mindset doesn’t happen accidentally. It takes a conscious effort to view today as temporal, and stay hopeful for tomorrow.

The present can be overwhelming, a metaphorical season of drought, harsh winter, or severe flooding. You might find yourself hampered by frustrating or debilitating conditions.

Or, maybe you were overcome by your yesterdays. Cumulative trauma, failures, tragedies, or injustices had an affect on your outlook. Bad events outnumbered the good, enough to induce an expectation of more bad ahead. Sometime during all that hardship, your dreams were buried.

It’s understandable that people surrender dreams and default to memories to fill the void. There are few things more excruciating than rallying to try again, to hope again, to end the vicious cycle, only to be met with more disappointment. When dreams cause pain, memories offer solace.

But, When your memories are greater than your dreams, you’ve already begun to die.

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The American pioneers plowed land for a purpose: for food, for survival. It was hard work to break the sod, plant a crop, and keep the plot from reverting to prairie. As long as they worked the land, they improved their odds for an ample harvest. If they quit, the surrounding indigenous plants encroached until the farmed plot succumbed.

It takes work to maintain a healthy mindset, too. If you don’t keep your dreams and hopes for a good future alive, your mind can be overtaken by your past. Instead of forging the best possible future, you can cause your own stagnancy. Instead of being a plowed field able to support a healthy crop, yours can revert to weeds.

Genesis 8:22 (ESV) “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Keep dreaming, so when your drought, flooding, or winter ends — as they always do — your sod is already broken, inertia is overcome, and your momentum is forward.

Keep dreaming, so when your spring arrives, you are primed and ready to fully engage in it.

From Song of Solomon:

11 See! The winter is past;
    the rains are over and gone.
12 Flowers appear on the earth;
    the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
    is heard in our land.

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She Loves Him

cindigale's avatarCindi Gale

My favorite part of “The Chronicles of Narnia” series is the love between Lucy and Aslan.

He is the depiction of Jesus. And of God. He is massive. Powerful. Immutable. His ferocity is frightening to others.

But not to Lucy. She loves him. She buries her face in the beautiful silkiness of his mane, riding high over the mountains of Narnia. Death is certain should she fall, but she is undaunted. Settled on his broad shoulders, her fists clutch that golden mane. Because it is Aslan that carries her, Lucy is carefree.

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His frame is strong. Unwavering. Secure. Unassailable. He never falters. Never misleads. Never abandons her. He never lowers her to earth anywhere short of stable, sheltered ground.

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He is insulating. He speaks to her softly, words rich in wisdom. All at once, his heart a blend of tenderness, intensity, and protectiveness. In there also, his own pain.

And so she loves…

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Kick Against the Pricks

cindigale's avatarCindi Gale

For two days a phrase has been on repeat in my mind:

“It’s hard for you to kick against the pricks.”

Finally, I remembered it in song form, leading me to listen to Johnny Cash’s familiar “When the Man Comes Around” with fresh awareness.

So, what does it mean, this phrase, “kick against the pricks”? An investigation yielded this explanation from “Got Questions Ministry”:

“It is hard for you to kick against the pricks” was a Greek proverb, but it was also familiar to the Jews and anyone who made a living in agriculture. An ox goad was a stick with a pointed piece of iron on its tip used to prod the oxen when plowing. The farmer would prick the animal to steer it in the right direction. Sometimes the animal would rebel by kicking out at the prick, and this would result in the prick being driven even…

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Restoring the Pearl of You

cindigale's avatarCindi Gale

What determines a person’s unique identity? What is constant about him? What changes about him? Has he morphed to the climate, attitudes, perceptions and expectations of certain groups of people?

Most of us have experienced this morphing sometime in our life. We kick ourselves after taking on the group attitude when a discussion erupted. We voice or nod agreement, when it’s not what we agree with at all. We vow to not let ourselves become what others have pegged us, then go to a gathering and act exactly as they expected. It’s a strange power.

Is it possible to be consistent in our identity? Is this what integrity is? Who can hold their own amid the pressures of society, influential people, loved ones, or even the corrupted theologies of some churches, and not flex so much that we sell our souls?

When we compromise our integrity, is it worth it?…

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The Path That Is Good

Proverbs 3:5-6 

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

Trust in him. Submit to him. Does God ask for our submission to put us in our place? To remind us that he is boss and we are beneath him? He could, because certainly he is above us in every way …

But no. He implores us to submit, acknowledge, or turn to him because he can optimally help us if we do. It’s about the free will that he gave us … We can go our own way if we choose, but if we willingly take every circumstance, every decision, every aspect of our daily lives to him, he will guide us on the path that is straight. The path that is righteous. The path that is good for us and good for others.

We can start by saying and meaning:  Not my understanding, but yours. Not my will, but yours. Not my thoughts, but yours. Not my way, but yours. Not my words, but yours.

It’s a process, that transfer of allegiance from self, people, or things to God. There will be errors — it is a discovery process, a learning experience — but if we truly want to surrender our lives to his leadership, he will help us discern which are our thoughts and which are his; what is our will and what is his.

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He may lead us along treacherous paths, close to the edge …

… but he won’t lead us off the path or over the edge. His are paths of companionship, direction, love, protection, encouragement, and assurance. Where he leads, we can be sure he is concerned for our welfare, entailing his purposes and our personal gain.

The paths on which he goes before us are not always easy. Some seasons of our lives are extremely challenging. It is on difficult paths that we gain experience, wisdom, discernment, and skills to overcome evil with good. It is there that we discover more and more who he is … Father, friend, and trustworthy guide. It is during difficult times that we prove our faithfulness, our resolve. It is in the trials that we learn that blessings are ahead … There is hope and a future.

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Just as spring and summer follow winter, growth in character and wisdom follow hardship. It is during prolonged journeys over difficult paths that we also learn to be good managers of what he gives us. He sets us up for success by giving us a chance to be faithful with very little. When the harvest overflows, we are capable of being trustworthy managers of much. (Luke 16:10)

It is in our best interests to fully trust in God. Follow him, and he will help us negotiate the unruly, pointless, or tumultuous obstacles along the way. Let him, and he will make our paths straight.

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Compelling God

God is a supplier whose provisions are limitless. His divine storehouses overflow infinitely. We open the flow to all that supply by our demand. He wants us to ask of him. He wants us to expect of him. Why? Because he’s unimaginably generous. He wants to give.

In the “water to wine” story*, when the wine was depleted at a wedding, Jesus’s mother asked him for a miracle. She expected one. Then she acknowledged Jesus’s authority. “Do whatever he tells you.”

Initially, Jesus said, “Why come to me?” His public miracles weren’t supposed to happen yet. “My hour has not yet come.”

We see it wasn’t Jesus who initiated the miracle that day, it was Mary. But when asked, he acted.

I’ve noticed in my own life that I’m motivated by the needs of my circumstances. I’ll happily drop everything to drive to one of my sons in need. I often go from zero to sixty, from no writing inspiration to highly motivated, simply because viewers logged on. I even move into action for a lawn in need of mowing.

Need compels provision.

God is like that. He responds to our requests. If we demand nothing from him, expect nothing from him, need nothing from him, ask nothing from him — nothing is exactly what we get.

There are valuable lessons in Mary’s example: Approach God for the solution. Ask of him. Expect him to meet our needs. Accept his will and his timing. And be prepared that he may respond and give beyond what we ask or think.

Ephesians 3:20 (Amplified Bible) 20 Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—

Lou Lourdeau's pics, vessel for wine, blog

*John 2: 1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there,2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing,each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

*Photos courtesy of Lou Lourdeau