Thirty-three years ago we moved onto this "back forty," across a grassy stretch between two fences, over a low rise deep into the live oaks, around the moss-laden corner and down the hill to what had last been a watermelon field.  We mowed it little by little, landscaped it with a wheelbarrow and a shovel, and began planting—a garden first, then roses, azaleas, blueberries, grape vines, crepe myrtles, daylilies, amaryllises, jasmine, jessamine, and finally, a few annuals.  Then came the trees—a few oaks, including a huge acorn we brought back from a camping trip in north Georgia, a sycamore, a maple, a couple of apples, a peach, and then two pecan trees, right in the middle of the west field.  Finally we had our dream property, but nature refused to cooperate on a few things.
 
             First the apple trees died, then the peaches.  "Too close to oak trees," the county agent said.  Now the blueberries have stopped bearing, and yes, they are right next to what used to be a small oak—but that was three decades ago.  It now towers over them.  And the pecans?  They might be six feet tall after all these years, and we haven't had the first pecan.  "Too close to the pine trees," we were told, pines that at the time were hardly more than fat sticks in the ground, but are now well over forty feet tall.  "They have ruined the soil for pecans."

              So what can we glean from this?  What are we surrounding ourselves with?  What has "ruined our soil?"  What has made us completely unfit for the kingdom?

              The first thing that comes to mind is, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, you make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. (Matt 23:15).  If we aren't careful, we can stunt the growth of new Christians.  Barnes says they Jews did this by converting for the sole purpose of inflating their numbers and then not teaching the former pagans how to live by God's law.  Add to that, when a hypocrite converts someone, just exactly what does he probably teach them to be?  Another hypocrite just like he was.  So in either case, we have left them as weak pecan trees in the midst of stronger pines who ruin the soil in which they have been planted.

              But let's not forget the obvious application.  Be not deceived: Evil companionships corrupt good morals. (1Cor 15:33)

               This is not about whether or not you should go out into the world to make contacts and teach.  Of course you should.  But soil is where a tree gains its nutrients and its life-giving water.  When I talk to my neighbors, when I work with my colleagues, where do I go for sustenance?  Do I stay with them and imbibe their values, or do I return to my core group, to my support system, to regain my strength?  Am I careful to monitor myself for signs that I may be taking in the wrong kind of nutrition and passing it off as "seeking the lost?" 

               The area in which we plant ourselves should have access to light, not be dwarfed by taller, stronger trees who smother us in their own values.  WE need to be the oaks, not the pecans, the ones who influence the weak, not the other way around.  Just who is influencing whom in your case?

               Stop and check yourself today.  It did not take us thirty years to know we had a problem with these trees.  When a five foot tall tree has not grown an inch in a year, something is amiss.  Have you grown?  Have I?  Are we better than we were five years ago?  Or do we still fight the same battles in the same way with the same meager results—or even fail? 

               So ask yourself, who had you rather spend time with?  Who do you go to for advice?  Who influences your behavior more than anyone else?  If the answer is NOT "godly brothers and sisters," maybe you are nothing more than a stunted pecan tree.  If you think those towering pines and oaks who are affecting your growth have any real respect for you, you are sadly mistaken.  They see you for what you are—a weak, scrawny pecan tree.  So does God.
 
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. (1Cor 3:18)
 
Dene Ward

Remember those grape hulls I mentioned, the ones leftover from making grape juice?  After sitting in that liquid for a few weeks, nothing remains but a pale, sour, seedy bag.  Still, straining them out and throwing them away was hard for me to do.  When you live closely for so long, you use everything until it has no service left in it. 

              I never throw away a plastic bag, for instance, after only one use.  I wash it and hang it out in the kitchen to dry.  After several uses it will eventually develop a hole or two, sometimes pinprick holes, but even that makes it no longer airtight.  When that happens it becomes a produce bag.  Why buy special green bags with vents in them?  I just add another hole or two with a couple of knife stabs and “re-purpose” the bag.

              So I had a hard time throwing out those grape hulls.  I certainly didn’t want to eat them—I had already tried that, but maybe the birds would, or a coon, or a possum—they eat just about anything.  So we laid them out on an old stump to see what would happen.

              Nothing happened.  Nothing wanted them.  We saw no signs that anything had even nosed around in them or pecked even once.  Somehow every animal and bird could tell just with a look that nothing good remained in those hulls.  They were simply useless.

              How about us?  Sometimes we think that because we sit on a pew we are serving God.  Maybe all we are doing is lying on a stump.  Like birds that fly past those leached out grape hulls, maybe our neighbors take a quick gander and decide there is absolutely nothing there worthwhile.  If they don’t know who and what we are by the words we say and the deeds of kindness we do, how useful are we to the Master?  If they don’t see that we handle life better than they, that trials do not deplete our faith and joy and hope, why should they care about what we do on Sunday mornings?

              In fact, they will get some use out of those empty hulls of a life we lead—they will be able to tell at a glance what they do not want to be, and they will do their best to stay away from it, just as the coons and possums probably went out of their way to go around that stump in the wee hours of the morning.  Those grape hulls will act as a perfect thermostat for judging our personal brand of Christianity.  As such, they aren’t just useless, they are actively damaging to the spread of the gospel, and the growth of the Lord’s body.

              Empty hulls are not grapes, nor empty lives disciples of the Lord. 
 
Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice…To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice, Matt 9:13; Prov 21:3.
 
Dene Ward

Every August the grapes come in, muscadines and scuppernongs in this part of the country.  Strong flavored, thick-skinned, acidic, and seedy, they are best for jelly and juice, though true Floridians enjoy noshing on them as is.  With the boys grown now, I go through fewer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so the jelly production has dwindled and the juice making increased, and I have discovered the easiest method for making and canning grape juice.

              Put a generous cup or so of clean grapes in each sterilized quart jar.  Add some sugar and fill the jars with boiling water.  Process and once the lids have sealed, put them on your shelf for at least two months.  The liquid and the sugar will leach the goodness right out of those grapes.  When you open the jar, strain them out and enjoy what’s left behind.  Perhaps not as much fun as jumping into the vat with Lucy and Ethel, but far cleaner and easier.

              One day I decided to taste one of those strained-out grapes just to see what was left in it.  I should have known—it was duller and several shades paler than its original shiny purple-black, and loose as a deflated balloon.  How did it taste?  Like sour nothingness.   Maybe that’s what happens to us when we steep ourselves in the world. 
 
             Is wealth consuming your thoughts?  “Just let me have enough,” is a lie we tell ourselves.   He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income, Eccl 5:10.  If you allow thoughts of riches to flood your life—even if you don’t have them--anything spiritual will be washed out of your heart.  Notice the prediction God made about Israel:  But [they] waxed fat, and kicked: you have waxed fat, you have grown thick, you are covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation, Deuteronomy 32:15.  Their wealth (“fatness”) covered them so that it was all they could think about.  Any notion of serving God was completely forgotten.  If you think we aren’t at risk, just take a minute and look around.  What used to be a God-fearing nation has become a people who worship wealth, power, and celebrity instead.

              Other times we allow the pleasures and conveniences of this world to permeate our lives so that the mere thought of sacrificing anything, whether comfort, ease, or even opinion, will be smothered out of us.  “Self” will leach the good out of hearts and minds, and leave nothing but the emptiness of indulgence.  If your “rights” spring to your lips every time someone crosses you, you have stifled the spiritual character of yielding to others, whether your neighbors, the man in the car in front of you, or the brother who sits next to you on the pew.  You have suffocated the spirit of mercy that marks us as His children.  For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh... For to be carnally minded is death… Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, Romans 8:5-8.

              But sometimes we simply drown in “stuff.”  What do you do all day long?  Run from this to that to another event, none of which is evil, but none of which is spiritual either.  How do you feel at the end of the day?  Drained, probably, and maybe even quicker to fall into the sins of impatience and intolerance simply because you are so tired.  And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he who hears the word; and the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful, Matthew 13:22.

              What are you floating in today?  Will it make you sweet and useful to the Master, or will it leave you an empty, useless hull of a servant, one who will be strained out and thrown away?  Let me know if you need a jar of my grape juice to sit on your shelf as a reminder.
 
My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food…For zeal for your house has consumed me, Job 23:11-12, Psa 69:9.
 
Dene Ward

Eduard Friedrich Poeppig was born July 16, 1798 in Plauen, Germany.  He studied and qualified as a physician by 1822, but evidently that is not where his heart lay.  Immediately after graduation he made a 10 year expedition to the Americas, spending several years in Cuba, Philadelphia, and South America.  He was only the third European to travel the entire length of the Amazon River.
His trip was financed by several friends in return for plant specimens he discovered in each of the areas he visited.  In all he sent back or took home over 17,000 of them.  When he returned to Germany he became the Zoology professor at the University of Leipzig for the remainder of his life.

              One of the plants he discovered on a hillside in Chile was the amaryllis hippeastrum, one of the most beautiful plants in the world.  I have well over a dozen now, in a bed begun after a piano student gave me one for Christmas one year.  The deep solid red is probably the most common, but I have that and everything from pale pink and bright apricot, to stripes of white on red, pink, and apricot; pink throats on a pristine white, or white throats on deep orange or red as well.  They are gorgeous, but sometimes they don’t bloom, and that leaves me disappointed, usually with half the bulbs every year.  So I decided to find out what keeps amaryllises from blooming to see if I could remedy the problem.  Here is what I discovered and what I extrapolated.

              Amaryllises will not bloom in full shade.  They may not need full sun, especially in this sub-tropical environment, but they need enough light to draw that big thick stem up out of the bulb and through the soil and mulch.

              The New Testament tells us we need the Light, too.  John says that as long as we walk in the light, we won’t stumble (1 John 2:9-11).  It variously calls us sons of light and children of light; it says we are “of the day not the night.”  And because we have that Light and live in it, we then become “the light of the world.”  Certainly a Christian who does not live in the light will never bloom.

              Amaryllises need sufficient nutrients.  Just as a larger animal needs more food, this large flower needs good soil, and ample food and water.  Many of my amaryllis bulbs were as big as softballs when they came out of the package, and many of the blooms are broader across than some of Keith’s garden cantaloupes.  Especially in this poor sandy soil, we must be sure to supply the proper nutrition if we want anything to come out of it.

              We need nutrition too.  Peter tells us to “long for the pure spiritual milk that by it we may grow up into salvation” 1 Pet 2:2.  How can we do that if we neglect all the feeding opportunities our shepherds have offered us?  How can we do it when we shun the healthy spiritual food and feast on the junk in this life?  I have seen many brothers and sisters go hog wild with the organic, all-natural, non-preservative craze when taking care of their physical bodies, yet starve their spirits with skimpy servings and junk food.  No wonder their blooms are so scarce and puny.

              This might be surprising, but not allowing them to rest will also keep amaryllises from blooming.  You can force blooms at certain times of the year, but then you must prune both the stem and leaves and water them prodigiously until they go dormant.  Then leave them alone! 

              God did not rest on the seventh day because He was tired.  He rested because He was finished, but in that rest he also ordained a day of rest for His people.  Do you understand what that means?  In that ancient time, the common people lived hand to mouth and they worked sunup till sundown seven days a week just to survive.  But not God’s people.  As long as they observed their commanded Sabbath, He made sure they had plenty.  God knows what you need and sometimes you need to rest.  It may no longer be a religious observance, but it is certainly a matter of health.  And rest doesn’t mean going on a vacation that leaves you more worn out than rested.  It means a day with no schedule, no stressful situations, nothing hanging over your head that “just has to be done.”  Spend some time with your family—just one full day a week, any day—rest your body and your mind, and talk of the blessings God has given you all, especially the time you have to be together because He has taken such good care of you.

              And this last one really surprised me.  If you take your amaryllis bulbs out of the ground and store them in the refrigerator, you should not store them with apples.  Apples will make an amaryllis bulb sterile, or so I have been told.  Apples?  Apples are good things, right?  But even things that look good can make a plant sterile and unproductive it turns out. 

              Haven’t you seen the same thing happen to Christians?  They become so involved in things of this world, good things, that there is no time left for producing the fruit God wants from us.  Or they hang around with people who are not their spiritual brothers and sisters to the point that what matters most to those people becomes what matters most to them.  Other people, people who do not understand that we are to encourage one another and build one another up spiritually, who care nothing for the spiritual warfare we are involved in, who would, in fact, think you are nuts to even talk about such a thing, can hinder your productivity for the Lord.

              So take a look at your amaryllises today if you have them.  Think about the things that affect those gorgeous blooms.  See if any of them are affecting you too.
 
And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful, Titus 3:14.
 
Dene Ward
 

Keith loves tomatoes, which accounts for the fact that we have 95 tomato plants in our garden.  In the summer, his supper is not complete without a heaping platter of sliced tomatoes, assorted colors and varieties—Better Boy, Celebrity, Big Beef, Golden Girl, Golden Jubilee, Cherokee Purple—all full sized, some even the one-slicers:  large enough for one slice to cover a piece of bread. 

              So when the first tomato ripened this year and he let me have the whole thing to myself everyone was amazed.  “What a generous husband!” some exclaimed.  Then I told them the rest of the story.  It was a Sungold Cherry tomato, more like a grape tomato, less than an inch in diameter.

              “What a generous husband!” they again exclaimed, with a slightly different inflection on the “generous.”

              It was a joke and everyone knew it, including Keith.  How sad that so many do not see the joke when it’s the tomato they’ve been offered.

              Do you want wealth and fame?  Here, have the whole tomato.

              Do you want career, status and power?  Here, enjoy this, it’s all yours.

              Do you want pleasure of every kind, fun, and excitement?  Here, it’s ripe and ready and yours for the taking.  Eat every bite.

              Isn’t life wonderful?  Isn’t the world an amazing place?  Isn’t the ruler of this world the most generous being there is?  Don’t bet on it. 

              Look at the size of that tomato again.  Now look at what you lose when you accept it:  family, love, redemption, hope, your soul.  My, how generous that offer was—one measly little bite that is gone in an instant for the price of everything eternal.

              That tomato may taste pretty good.  It may be the best one that ever grew in any garden anywhere.  But I’d rather take my Father’s offer—He has a whole garden to give me.
 
And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof. And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no curse any more: and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever, Revelation 22:1-5.
 
For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? or what shall a man give in exchange for his life? Matthew 16:26.
 
Dene Ward

God must have loved gardens.  That first garden was used as the ideal all through the scriptures, the utopia that everyone longed for.  The Messianic kingdom is referred to as the restoration of the Garden of Eden in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and other prophets. And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, 'This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.' Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the LORD; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it. (Ezekiel 36:34-36).

              And why was Eden perfect? Everything man needed was in that first garden, trees and plants to sustain his physical life, including the Tree of Life.  God also gave man the companionship of a woman, for He said, it is not good that man should be alone, 2:18.  He gave him work to do, tending that garden, and every evening He came to walk with man.  Surely that marvelous fellowship was the greatest need He fulfilled.

              Revelation 22 depicts another garden, one that despite my growing belief that the majority of the descriptions in that book are about the victorious church, I cannot help but see in a final heavenly fulfillment.  We will be back where the Tree of Life spreads its branches, 22:2.  We will be with other servants of God, “those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” 21:27.  We will have work—to serve and worship our Creator for Eternity, 22:3,8,9.  And once again we will be in fellowship, and proximity, to God—His throne is there and we shall “see his face” 22:1,4.  God’s plan will have come full circle, from that first garden to an eternal one.

              But there was another garden, one right in the middle of it all—Gethsemane.  It had some of the same characteristics.  The disciples had fellowship with each other and with their Lord.  And they had work to do.  “Watch with me,” Jesus told them, Matt 26:38.  It had been a long day, one full of surprises and mysterious statements by their Master.  They were tired, wanting only to rest, and so “their eyes were heavy,” and they slept, 26:48.  When the Lord needed them most, they failed Him.

              That garden was the reason we have hope of an Eternal Garden.  In a sense, we are living our lives in that middle garden with the Lord.  “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation,” he told those men, Mark 14:38, adding at the end, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  My flesh may indeed be weak, but too often my spirit is lacking as well.  Life can wear you out.  Trials seem to come in one long succession, like a string of ugly beads.  All you want to do is have one day of peace, one day when something goes right, when it seems like the world isn’t against you and justice will prevail. 

              It is hard, and your Lord knows it.  He sat in that same garden you are in now, awaiting things you will probably never have to experience.  And he did it so you can have hope of a garden where everything will finally be right, where you can rest and “there will be no curse any more.”

              But for now, you must watch, you must endure just a little while longer.  I have finally lived long enough to know that it isn’t that long a “while” till it’s over, and then there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. 

              And once again, we will walk in the garden with God.
 
He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him that overcomes, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God. Revelation 2:7.                                                                                                      
 
Dene Ward

It’s another summer morning in Florida.  Nine o’clock, 78 degrees, yet before you have taken ten steps outside your skin begins to prickle in that way it does just before a sweat breaks out, and your hair begins to wilt or kink, depending upon its natural state of curl or uncurl.  The trees are dripping so that it sounds like rain on the metal carport roofing, and the hazy air is thick enough with humidity to drown you if you breathe too quickly.  The damp ground smells loamy, and in places a little sour.  A film of perspiration has already formed over your lips and your shirt feels like it came out of the dryer five minutes too soon. 

              If you stay out longer than a few minutes, the only word that truly describes how you feel is “nasty.”  Sweaty, greasy, grimy, sandy, and swarming with gnats and yellow flies.  As uncomfortable as it is, I still try to get all my yard work done then, before the temperature rises to match the humidity and the sub-tropical sun beats on you as mercilessly as an Egyptian taskmaster.  I spray the underside of my garden hat brim with Off and don my work out clothes.  No need messing up something else with gray grime that will never come out once you have soaked them in the righteous sweat of labor, for dripping with it you will be.

              This morning I spent the time in the raised bed around the trellises.  With a wetter summer than we have had in years, the weeds grow more thickly than the grass and flowers.  I weed one bed, and the next week it looks like I haven’t touched it in a month.  So I went around pulling out grass sprigs, dollarweed, castor beans, and half a dozen oak trees.

              You read that right—oak trees.  I am not Mrs. Paul Bunyan—none of those discarded oak trees were over 6 inches tall.  Some of them even had the acorn still attached to the roots when I pulled it out of the ground.  It was easy.  One quick rip and up they came.  Pulling up trees is simple when you get them at six inches.  Even waiting till they are a foot tall makes a significant difference in how difficult it is to uproot them.

              Yet isn’t that what we do in our lives?  We wait till the soap scum is flaky gray and a quarter inch thick before we get out the scrub brush, when a two minute wipe each week would save us twenty minutes of elbow grease every month.  We wait till the fat rolls over our waistbands, when losing five pounds every six months would save us the agony of an 800 calorie a day diet for a year to lose thirty.  We wait till our lives are falling apart, when realigning ourselves a quarter inch every day would have kept the Devil at bay.

              Isn’t it time to wise up a little?  Isn’t it time to do a little work to save the pain that results from neglect? 

              Have a conversation with God every day, throughout the day, while you wash those dishes or walk the dog or trim the hedges.  When something serious arises and you really need the help, you won’t have to wonder if He’ll be there for you or if He gave up on you long ago.  (He does do that, you know, give up on people, Jer 11:11; 14:12; Ezek 8:18; Mic 3:4; Zech 7:13, etc.).

              Start reading your Bible now, a little every day, adding some serious and diligent study as you go along, learning some good study techniques from those who know them and want so badly to share.  Then when your neighbor asks you a question, you just might be able to answer him, instead of standing there like a fool, red with embarrassment.

              Begin working on those problems you have, the ones that nag you day after day.  Make a plan and begin to weed the sin out of your life like a six inch oak tree.  If it becomes the behemoth that stands over your house, you will never get rid of it, but the Devil will be more than happy to take advantage of the shade.
 
…looking carefully lest there be any man that fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled; Hebrews 12:15.
 
Dene Ward

I don’t really know that much about plants.  I have killed my fair share of them, especially houseplants, but I salve my ego with the notion that it might be because the house is so dark.  In Florida, living under huge live oaks is good for the electric bill, not so good for anything inside that needs a sunny window.

              I have learned the hard way what to do and what not to do.  Living in zone 9 means you make more mistakes than most about what will grow and what won’t.  It never dawned on me that there was such a thing as too warm a climate until the first time I planted tulip bulbs.  All those lovely spring flowers will never make it here without a lot of extra work, like digging them up and putting them in the freezer for awhile, and even then you can’t count on it.

              We lived in South Carolina for three years and I could actually grow irises.  The first time I ordered them, I was stunned when they arrived—a bare hunk of root in a plastic bag.  Surely it was dead by now, I thought.  That was how I learned about rhizomes. 

              Rhizomes are not ordinary roots, long and hairlike, growing out of the bottom of a stem.  They aren’t bulbs either.  They are long pieces of thick rootstock, sometimes called underground stems, which run horizontally under the plant, sending out numerous roots and even leaf buds from its upper surface.  That horizontal orientation also aids in propagation, as the roots spread underground and form more rhizomes from which more plants grow the next season.

              Now think about that as you read this passage:  Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving, Colossians 2:6-7.  That word “rooted” is the Greek word rhizoomai.  I am not a Greek scholar but it doesn’t take one to see the connection between that word and “rhizome.”  I am told that its figurative meaning is “to become stable.”

              It isn’t just that we are rooted downward in the faith with tiny hairlike roots.  Our faith is based in something that is strong, that can even withstand the rigors of being out of its milieu for awhile (like rootstock shipped in a plastic bag), that spreads out to others on a regular basis, and eventually grows into a whole support system.  Try to pull up an ordinary plant and you can usually do so without too much trouble.  Try to pull up a rhizome-based plant and you have to work at it awhile, in fact you may uproot half your yard trying to do so and still never get it all.

              That sort of root takes awhile to develop.  It doesn’t happen overnight or without effort, and it won’t happen that way with you either.  You must work at it, but once you have, you will be far stronger than you ever imagined. 

              You have to be connected to your brethren too, you can’t just “be a Christian,” one completely divorced from the Lord’s family, and think you will ever have that same sort of strength.  Rhizomes reach out, and so must we.  The only other choice is a fragile little root system that will die if it is uprooted for very long at all.

              Build up…your most holy faith, Jude says, v 20, but build it down as well, rooting yourself with a strong rootstock that will not waver, despite the trials of life and the persecutions of the enemy.  Develop a rhizome and, in the words of Peter who told us how to supplement our faith, “you shall never fall” (2 Pet 1:5-10).
 
 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven…Colossians 1:21-23.
 
Dene Ward

We first encountered a coreopsis when we planted several packets of wildflowers and a few sprang up along the edge of our mown field.   These two foot high plants held bright yellow ray flowers on bare stalks above lance shaped leaves.  “Tickseed” I found as its colloquial name because its hard flat black fruit resembles a tick.
 
             Although they still spring up here and there nearly fifteen years after that original planting, they are sparse and tend to congregate on the southern edge of the field, shining like the occasional light bulb in a sea of green grass and weeds.  They had just started blooming in early May when I spent my entire morning walk with Chloe talking to God about a particularly thorny issue.  I had just asked for what seemed impossible. 

              It has taken me years to reach this point.  The church of my day spent nearly its entire existence fighting false doctrines, certainly a noble cause.  False teaching can steal souls as easily as the temptations of an increasingly carnal culture.  But we often forgot to balance those teachings with the truth, jumping far beyond it to a place of certain safety, where we were so far from the ravenous wolf in sheep’s clothing that we fell into the pit of despair instead.  Yes, miracles have ceased, but that doesn’t mean that God no longer works in the world or that my prayers will not be answered.  Yes, the Holy Spirit operates through the Word He inspired, but that doesn’t meant that I will not receive help from an avenue He has set in motion.  Providence, we call all of those things—normal natural occurrences that seem to come at the most opportune times.

              And so I was walking along the path, pulling my way with those now ubiquitous trekking poles of mine, along the back fence, probably fifty feet from the nearest--and loneliest--coreopsis, turning on its southwest side by a stretch where we had sown none of them, and none had ever before appeared.  When things do spread, they always go north-northwest, certainly never south, especially in the summer.  Yet suddenly, right there before me stood a bright yellow beacon where it should not have been.  It was so unexpected I came to a complete halt and called Chloe over, as if she too should have cared.  Coming as it did so surprisingly, just after that impossible request, I was instantly reminded that God can do the impossible, and my spirits soared.

              No, I am not a mystic, or a believer in such things.  But I am reminded of a sermon Jesus preached once, where it seems he glanced up and surely must have seen a flock of birds on the wing, so he said, “Behold the birds of the heavens,” and a few minutes later when he surely must have seen a nearby patch of flowers and said, “Consider the lilies of the field.”  Jesus had no problem at all using the natural world to teach His lessons.  Why can’t I use the natural world to remind me of lessons I need at a particular time?

              I have a friend who loves butterflies.  As she endures cancer treatment she often says, “God sent me a butterfly today.”  She had looked outside and seen one flitting around in her flowerbeds.  That butterfly reminded her that God cares for her, just as Jesus reminds us, Look at the birds of the heavens, that they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are not you of much more value than they? Matt 6:26. 

              God has created an amazing natural world to teach us if we will but pay attention.  Solomon used that natural world in the wisdom God gave him.  And he spoke three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of creeping things, and of fishes. 1 Kings 4:32-33.  If we deny this creation of God its ability to edify and encourage, how are we any different from the pagan who denies that it proves God’s very existence in the first place?

              Pay attention to what lies outside your door today, the birds and lilies, the butterflies and the out of place, bright yellow coreopsis.  As it turns out, God did answer my impossible prayer that day, in almost exactly the way I had asked.  Who am I to try to explain that away?
 
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God," Mark 10:27
 
Dene Ward
 

Tarragon is a difficult herb.  It’s even hard to find at the local garden shops.  You have to go to the independent, specialty shops where everything costs twice as much.  Then when you get it, it’s hard to grow.  Not only is the flavor delicate, so is the plant.  I have killed more than my share of these fragile babies. 
 
             But speaking of delicate flavor, it is almost paradoxical that something so delicate is also so distinctive.  Like cilantro, you know when a dish has even a hint of tarragon in it, but at the same time it won’t take over.  Tarragon in a chicken salad makes it a main event, and I have a pork chop recipe with tarragon cream sauce that turns that mundane diner staple into fine dining.  (See the recipe page if you are interested.)

              As I said, I usually wind up killing whatever tarragon plants I manage to find.  I always thought it was the heat, but maybe it’s me.  Somehow, last year’s plant survived until frost.  Then I got another wonderful surprise.  This spring it came back from the root.  I didn’t believe it at first.  It looked like tarragon, and it was in the same spot as the plant last summer, but I still didn’t believe it—not until I pinched off a leaf and smelled it.  Yesssss!  This year I don’t have to comb the garden shops looking for another one to kill.  It’s right there in my herb bed, waiting for its execution day.

              Speaking of these sorts of things, I find it bewildering that people get themselves so wrought up over whether or not the Lord’s church existed somewhere in hiding in the Middle Ages.  Maybe it did; maybe it didn’t.  Maybe there actually was a spell when no one alive even bothered trying to follow the New Testament pattern.  Why should that affect my faith?  The seed is the Word of God, Luke 8:11.  We still have that seed.  We can still plant it and it will produce after its own kind, just as God ordained for every seed from the moment He created the first one. 

              Sometimes we keep leftover seeds in the freezer.  If we had a bumper crop and I put up way too much corn, I may not plant any the next year, or even the next.  But when I get that seed out, as I did a few weeks ago, we can plant it again, and lo and behold there is now corn growing in the garden, a few silks already turning brown. It will happen every time we plant that seed, no matter how long it’s been since the last time we planted it.  The same will happen when we plant the Word of God, the seed that produces Christians.

              And what’s more, we still have the Root, and that’s even better.  As long as the gospel exists and we can preach about that Root, the one who came to earth, lived as we do, died, and rose again, faith will spring up from that Root, and the Lord’s body will once again exist. 

              Why is this so surprising?  Why indeed should it bother me one way or the other if I trust God?  He ordained this rule.  Who could ever undo it?  And Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. (Rom 4:3).  Do you believe Him?
 
And again Isaiah says, "The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope." May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:12-13
 
Dene Ward