Fruitful and Forgetful

My husband and I met at work. He was brash and crude. I didn't like him. A few years later, we began talking, then dating, and the rest is history. But I gotta tell you, the thing that sold me on the guy was, there is so much more than meets the eye. Our first date was sweet, romantic. I later saw a Dad who loved his kids and wanted the best for them-- such a contrast from the guy at work who griped and wanted things his way and had some difficulty playing well with others. And his condo? Well, that was like stepping into the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. He had houseplants, y'all!! Living, green, beautiful houseplants! I was still on the horticultural society's watchlist. Since then, we have grown our own garden from seeds, and planting our flower garden has become something we look forward to and do together each year. Who would have thought?

In Genesis 41:50-52, Joseph, a Hebrew son of Jacob (Israel), has become second only to Pharaoh in Egypt. He has been given Pharaoh's daughter as his wife and together they have two sons. His second is named Ephraim, meaning twofold increase, or doubly fruitful. Joseph explains, For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. Fruitful. What did Joseph mean by "fruitful"? As second only to Pharaoh, Joseph had royal garments and a gold chain about his neck, the Pharaoh's signet ring which gave him authority over all the kingdom, Pharaoh's daughter as his wife, and all of Egypt bowing before him as he rode in the second finest chariot in the land. Is this the "fruitful" Joseph was talking about? Not at all. The fruit Joseph was pointing to was from God. Do you see that? God has caused me to be fruitful. But there's more. Joseph was fruitful where? In Egypt; the land of his affliction is how he describes it. God had blessed him; Egypt had afflicted him. Egypt was not his home. It was not the kingdom he was born to serve. Egypt could never offer him the kind of fruit Joseph was born to bear, the fruit of the God he served: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It is in fact, this fruit that allowed him to name his first son Manasseh: forgetting, evaporating. For God has made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house, Joseph explains. Only God, only the fruit of His Spirit can cause us to forget the things that will keep us from fruitfulness. Just so we're clear, Joseph didn't deny his affliction. He calls it out! Allow me to paraphrase: I forgot the things I suffered at the hands of my family because God has made me fruitful! Now that's some good fruit! 

Years ago, we were sitting in church when the pastor talked about forgiveness. One of our children turned to me and asked, "Did he say, 'Forgotness'?" That has stayed with me. Forgotness. Is it possible to go beyond forgiveness and reach that place of forgotness? I'm not talking about memory lapse. I'm not talking about a complete failure to recall the offense or the robbery or the betrayal. I'm talking about a forgotness that takes the sting from those infractions in much the same way as a mother forgets the intense pain of childbirth the moment she hears her baby's first cry. I'm talking about a forgotness that heals triggers. I'm talking about a forgotness that blesses entire generations because the fruit we bear yielded a harvest, breaking cycles and regenerating families and renewing minds and collecting the torrents of righteousness God has rained down on those He calls His own through His Son, Jesus Christ. We can forget. 

I have forgotten the specifics of disliking Scott when I met him. What, exactly, had he said? What, exactly, had he done? I remember, however, the joy and comfort of discovering wonderful things about him: the doting dad and his eye for things like decorating and gardening. What would happen if Scott ever became unable to supervise our yearly planting? I'd probably wind up tried for crimes against flora again. I am assured, however, that as I walk with Jesus and seek to be fruitful by imitating Him, I will forget the specifics of hardship and pain. You can, too. Who would have thought?

No Different

Last year, my husband and I went on what we affectionately call, The Trip from Hell. That's probably irreverent, and probably not how we should label it, but I'm open to suggestions. We had booked a cruise over a year before. COVID restrictions being what they were at the time of finalization, Hubby and I decided to forego the cruise and do a quiet cabin in the woods instead. Well, we both got sick about a week before, and...it...lingered... We decided nothing was going to stop us, and we set off for our cute little rented cabin. And we drove. And we drove. And we drove. Until, hours later, we were hopelessly lost. Little did we know, the local rental agencies --and there are many-- exchange and rearrange cabin names rather frequently. Google Maps was not our friend. Our cabin was about twenty minutes from the group of cabins we were endlessly circling. It was late and we were tired, hungry, and very frustrated. When we finally found what we dreamed would be our love nest for the next five days, the accommodations were meh and there was no place to eat for miles. The weather had gotten sloppy, wet, and cold, and within twenty-four hours we were completely encased in ice with no food in the fridge and no way to get safely down the mountain. No postcard could possibly capture the excitement we felt. Did we grumble? Did we complain? You betcha!

This morning I was reading in Exodus 16:1-3. Israel is one month out from Egypt. They have seen terrible plagues befall Egypt by "the finger of God." They have seen an entire sea dried up in its midst that they might cross. They have witnessed water made pure by wood and rested in an oasis of springs and palm trees. But, in Exodus 16:2, they are grumbling again. Really?! we exclaim. How quickly they forget! we chastise. But I caution you (as I do myself), how many times have you grumbled in the last thirty days? Or perhaps, there was that moment you were brought to in which you grumbled enough for the entire thirty days. Let us not judge too harshly. How quickly we forget!

Israel was a people that had been raised to worship and to observe, but they had been enslaved in Egypt for generations. Nothing much had changed about their lives from the time a Pharaoh rose up who did not know Joseph, who was threatened by the people of God and appointed taskmasters over them-- nothing much had changed until their redemption. Their lives in Egypt were not at all like their lives here in this wilderness. This was a completely different type of existence, a different type of "test."

And this is where the Holy Spirit began to speak to my heart. All of life is a journey, with ups and downs, bumps and blessings; but they don't always look familiar to us. We long for stability, and when things get dull, we crave a change. We are rarely truly content, as Paul advises in Philippians 4:1-13. But not only are we sinfully fickle, we find ourselves completely undone when led into a trial or test that "appears" new. Folks, there is nothing new under the sun. Whether it's a trial of our hearts or a test of our patience, whether our finances fall short or the problems with our health are multiplying, whether our children have rejected us or our parents have moved in with us-- whatever is our present situation it requires the same course of action as every other situation that has come before: go to God.

When the dinner bell rang, God provided quail, and at breakfast time, manna for the people of Israel to eat. He had heard them. And when it came time for Scott and I to get off that mountain, God heard my prayers-- lots of them! So let us bear in mind that, though the specifics may be different, though the feelings may be different, though the length of time may be different, our God is not different. All any situation requires is that we look to Him.

The Power of Promise

Four of us. Two sitting comfortably with their meals before them. Two who had prepared to leave but now stood with heads bowed. In a diner. Praying for God's favor. Having church.

Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. ~ Matthew 18:18-20

I am not even going to pretend I understand all the implications of those verses, but I do know that God was in our midst. The two sitting were complete strangers to me. The woman who stood with me, one whose friendship I've only begun to savor and, I pray, will enjoy for years to come. And God. 

It is God who does the binding and loosing. It is God who does. And it is God, through the name and person of Jesus Christ, who is present. And it is His people who obey in faith.

Hebrews 11:1-2 tells us that those who served God, going before us, gained a good testimony (or had counted to their credit) because of their faith, and that faith is the substance of the things for which we hope and the evidence of things we can't see. Verse 3 assures us the earth itself was formed from that which we cannot see, the word of God. And verse 13 drops the bomb:

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Not having received. Does this mean they were fools? Does this mean God is the maestro of some cruel joke orchestrated throughout the lives of "His people" for centuries? No, this is faith. Faith in a God who is always merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, forgiving and just; a God who does not change His mind or lie. A God who has prepared something better for us in the land to which we are called, the land for which we were created, the land that is our home. Hebrews 11:14-16 continues:

For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

Speaking of those who died in faith not having received, God, through the author of Hebrews explains that not a one was lying on their deathbed mourning what they hadn't received, but were instead rejoicing, eyes pointed upward, knowing that they were about to receive all that had been promised to them in its perfect glory.

Assuredly I say to you, Jesus says. He is in our midst. The power of Promise. Believe and obey.

Can You See What God Sees?

I was having breakfast with a friend and discussing past relationships --exchanging war stories, you might say. When speaking of his divorce, he said, "It sounds crazy, but what really bothered me was that I could see just how good it could be between us; but she didn't get it." Not crazy at all. I've heard that divorce can be for some, like the death of a dream. I was standing in my kitchen the day I realized I was grieving what might have been. I'd had a vision of what my marriage would be: a growing old together thing, a 'til death do us part thing. I was, when it came to my ex-husband and I, apparently, the only one who could see the vision. My friend felt the same way in his circumstance. Why stay married? our exes argued. They couldn't see. 

As my friend and I talked that day, God began impressing upon me the importance of vision. Do you know that God has a vision? Not just for everybody, but for each everybody. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." His vision is for the world and each and every whoever who will believe in His Son, Jesus, as the Lord and their Redeemer. Ephesians 1:4 says that those who are in Christ were chosen before the foundation of the world. Even before God created this perfectly designed place for us to live and breathe and thrive, He knew our names and had a vision for us. 

When it comes to the visions my friend and I had for our relationships, we couldn't tell our exes how many children we would have, or what they would look like, or how --exactly-- we'd be able to afford our mortgage each month, or even guarantee neither of us would ever get COPD or laid off from a job or suffer a breakdown. Maybe it was that very lack of specifics that made the visions too scary for our exes to stick around. As spouses, they were going to have to trust us when their eyes would not allow them to see for themselves. Perhaps, as their spouses, my friend and I didn't always prove to be perfectly trustworthy; maybe there was trauma in their pasts they allowed to prevent them from trusting, no matter how trustworthy we were. 

Our relationships, specifically our marriages are meant to be a picture of our relationship with Jesus. You see, God doesn't always lay out every detail of His vision for us either. We don't always know if the IVF will work, or if our children will be healthy, or if we will be approved for the mortgage, or if we will ever be well or employed or free of suffering this side of heaven. And maybe it's that very lack of specifics that has kept you from coming to Jesus or following too closely. As our Spouse, Christ has promised He is with us always and He is working on our behalf, preparing a place for us in heaven, giving us peace, guarding our hearts and minds, enabling us to obey, and making intercession for us. We can trust Him when our eyes will not allow us to see the vision for ourselves. He is perfectly trustworthy. Whatever trauma or betrayal we have experienced in our past, whatever things may have caused us to mistrust everyone or maybe even, lay aside dreams, those things can be healed, redeemed by the truth of God's Word and the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus.

Someday, who knows when, maybe you and I will meet in Heaven. We won't be swapping war stories or questioning why we stayed, I'm sure. But I imagine us sitting over a cup of coffee, laughing and telling one another how the plan God had for our lives on earth was shocking, unpredictable, bigger than anything we could imagine, and the most magnificent ride we had ever been on! All we had to do was trust the God who sees the vision.