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Chapter-a-Day

An Iowa Psalm

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Iowa annual fainfall, in inches, created in ES...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 65

You take care of the earth and water it,
    making it rich and fertile.
The river of God has plenty of water;
    it provides a bountiful harvest of grain,
    for you have ordered it so.
Psalm 65:9 (NLT)

For the record, I’ve never been a farmer. Though I’ve lived all but four years of my life in the state of Iowa I’ve got the most rudimentary understanding of how farms operate. I was raised in the city and have rarely stepped foot on a farm. Nevertheless, I’ve come to understand that being from Iowa gives you an appreciation for the land and the symbiotic relationship we have with it. You can’t escape it. The land and the people woven together. There’s cadence to life here that begins with planting, leads to harvest, followed by subsequent thanksgiving and celebration of the holidays before it ends in deep winter and the hope of next year and doing it all over again.

I tend to think that this relationship and dependence on the land and the weather is what gives us a rather humble and simple faith. Those whose livelihoods are rooted in agriculture realize our dependence on so much that it completely out of our control. You live life constantly making adjustments to what the earth and sky throw at you and have faith that it’s all going to work out in the end. When harvest does come and the crop comes in, there’s a realization that a large part of your success had absolutely nothing to do with you.

The chapter this morning tapped in to all of those thoughts and emotions. This is an Iowa psalm; A farmer’s psalm. David’s lyrics are full of that humble understanding that God’s creation is immense. No matter how much we strive to tame it, it only takes one massive storm, flood, or drought to remind us how dependent we really are.

Today, capping off a holiday weekend of Thanksgiving, I’m saying Psalm 65 as an extra prayer of gratitude.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Mark 4

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source: Google Earth

Jesus said, “How can I describe the Kingdom of God? What story should I use to illustrate it? It is like a mustard seed planted in the ground. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of all garden plants; it grows long branches, and birds can make nests in its shade.” Mark 4:30-32 (NLT)

In front of our house is a majestic oak tree. Its branches spread out over both our house and the house next door, and when you approach our house from down the street you can see the tree towering over our neighborhood. I’ve often wondered how long the tree has stood there. I sometimes imagine that it first emerged from the ground when Dutch settlers founded our town over a hundred and fifty years ago.

Each year, our tree drops acorns. Our tree drops a lot of acorns. In the late summer they begin dropping from the tree like little bombs shelling our roof around the clock. A fortunate family of squirrels incessantly patters across the roof right above my home office, gathering the acorns for winter storage. I suspect that our mighty oak tree alone feeds a whole pack of squirrels for the entire winter.

Some days I walk into the house, crunching acorn shells beneath my feet, and I think about those tiny little seeds. Our sprawling oak tree started out just like one of those small seeds I trample underfoot. Through harsh winter blizzards, sub-zero temperatures, violent spring thunderstorms, and blistering midwest doughts our tree has continued to slowly grow. Each year it experiences a cycle of death and rebirth. With each season the tree  puts roots deeper down into the Iowa soil to draw nourishment for its perpetual reach toward heaven.

I want to be like that old oak tree. Weathering all that life throws at me, I want to keep digging deeper so that I can continue reaching higher. As I grow, I want to spread myself out to shade and protect those around me. I want to provide for the little ones who scurry around, almost forgotten, at my feet. I want to offer a continuous supply of life giving oxygen for others to breathe. I hope that some day, when my trunk lays rotting on the ground, an entire forest will stand around me as a silent, living, and perpetuating memorial to this life that I have lived.

Wayfarer's Journal

Speaking of Changes in Life

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Speaking of life changes. There is, perhaps, no bigger change in life than the ones you make during adolesence. I recently found my Jr. High and High School I.D.s in an old album. Check out the change over six years. I also want to be sure to point m’boy Clayton to my Junior year in high school when I was growing a righteous mullet. The only problem was that my hair was so curly when it grew out that I couldn’t get it to hang straight down the way it was supposed to. True story: When my mullet was at its longest I went to the bank one day. I opened the door for an elderly gentleman who was shuffling slowly into the bank at the same time. “Why thank you young lady,” he said to me. I got my hair cut that afternoon and never looked back. C’est la vie.

My School I.D.s from 7th through 12th Grade
Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Isaiah 4

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Life springs up. And that's when God's Branch will sprout green and lush. Isaiah 4:2 (MSG)

I write this post on the back end of one of the longest, and most brutal winters my hometown has experienced. We shattered the record for the amount of snowfall we had. Each week brought more snow, ice, wind, and cold. And then, it was over. In one week the snow melted, revealing green grass that had been well inslated under a thick blanket of snow. The tulips immediately began to shoot from the ground. Life springs up in the wake of deathly winter.

There is a pattern, a theme, that runs through God's message. It is a message of hope and redemption. We see it in today's chapter and we will see it throughout Isaiah's prophecy. Doomsday and judgement are followed by salvation. Winter is followed by spring. Valleys give way to the next mountain top.

Believe. Press on.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flick and natmeister