Before It's Gone Too Far

For the first time since it was built in the late 1990’s, our house can be seen from the street. Our home, which backs up to a lake and was, until recently, surrounded by trees and Florida’s wild palmetto and scrub brush in front and on both sides, has had a seclusion invasion. 

A new house is being built on the lot next door. All the trees and brush on the north side of our home have been leveled and we are adjusting to the fact that very soon, a view of looming walls will be replacing nature on our northern horizon.

Our quiet acre of paradise has been invaded by backhoes, construction trucks and crews of workers wielding high decibel power tools and playing loud music, while attempting to converse over top of all the racket they are making. 

Two weeks ago we went outside after a rain and noticed water runoff, beginning near the side of the newly constructed foundation and flowing down, through the mulched area that stretches along the edge of our driveway between the two properties. A tiny rivulet of scooped out earth had formed and washed some of the bark mulch into our driveway gravel.

We pointed this out to the general contractor who promised to take care of it right away. 

He didn’t. 

A few days later after another hard rain, the first stream was larger and several more had formed. Now mulch and sand was washing down the driveway all over the cemented section in front of the garage. While I cleaned it up, the boss man looked it over and said he’d take care of it right away. 

He didn’t.

Several evenings ago we had one of the hardest rains I’ve seen in a while; one of those monsoon varieties with continuous thunder, lightning and a wide open fire hydrant sky, pouring torrential waters down from the heavens for well over an hour. It was one of Florida’s crazy, hazy summer afternoon rain storms.

When we went outside the next morning, an entire section of mulch and gravel and about one inch of sand that makes up the lower part of our driveway and its landscaped edge was washed up nearly to the garage door and under our cars. 

It was a mess. And I was upset!

I won’t bore you with the all the details of what happened next.  I will say that as soon as I went to the shed for a shovel and started digging the trench myself (that had been repeatedly promised) between our property and the construction site, reinforcements were quickly called in to help clean up the mess in our driveway. It took five of us about four hours to shovel, rake, sweep and pressure wash the driveway back to its original state. 

Apparently a fence company has been called and is supposed to come ASAP to put up a silt barrier. It will be buried eight inches under the ground along the edge of our property to stop the run-off and erosion into our driveway. I’m praying they come before it rains again.

I had a light bulb moment for my own heart, when I commented to Mike yesterday, “We all could have been spared four hours worth of sweaty, back breaking work in the hot sun if this had been taken care of back at the onset of the problem.”  

Hebrews 12:1 talks about the besetting sins that hinder us from finishing the course of our life; Song of Solomon 2:15, about the “little foxes that spoil the vine”; Hebrews 12:15, about the root of bitterness that left unchecked, grows until it defiles not only me, but many others; James 1:15 lays out the course of sin from a seemingly petty initial desire to conception and the end result.

It’s impossible to contain a river once it overflows. When I hand the destructive forces of my life over to God at their beginnings, while they’re still small, it allows for the eradication of problems that eventually swell out of control and run loose all over everything and everyone. I need to deal with my stuff before it’s gone too far. 

Inside the human condition, every tiny trickle and tributary left without God’s blueprinted boundary is potentially a mess in the making; a river of self destruction that flows farther and wider than we ever intended. Yes, thank God. He can restore. He can put us back together. He can repair the breach and clean up our mess, but it’s so much better if we just don’t go there at all.

May God help me commit every tiny area of my heart to His work of redemption, so the only thing flowing outward is the living waters of a life lived in Jesus. 

I pray every day what gushes from within me and all over you, is more and more of Him and whole lot less of me.

John 7:38 (ESV) Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

“A little thorn may cause much suffering. A little cloud may hide the sun. Little foxes spoil the vines; and little sins do mischief to the tender heart.”  ~Charles Spurgeon~

“Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.”  ~14^thCentury Proverb~

Broken Things

There’s a program I like to watch on TV about competing teams of interior designers who are given several hundred dollars for the challenge of choosing a few flea market items to refurbish and re-sell at the same flea market for a profit. The team that sells their re-designs for the highest earnings receives all the money at the show’s end. 

The designers choose objects that are broken, worn, damaged, old, ugly and possibly considered useless. They possess a passion for creative imagination and an eye for seeing something that is not yet there, turning discarded stuff into something people want. They restore value.

Just before Jesus began his ministry, scripture tells us, he was in the synagogue reading aloud this portion of Isaiah 61:

"And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

 ^“Then,” Luke 4:16-21 says, “He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus came to this planet wrapped in an earth suit – flesh and blood- to restore beauty and value to a broken world; to take us back where we have always belonged, into an intimate relationship with God our Father.

As Master Designer, God lovingly sorts through the scrap heap of our lives and sees us for who we can be rather than what we are. He sets our life on a path of repair and redemption the minute we yield everything we have and are to Him.

Feeling ugly, tattered, damaged, and useless? Though you may see yourself as such, your value has never once diminished inside God’s plan. He proved His obsession for your restoration by paying for it with the life of His Son. 

Are there pieces and parts of you that are shattered, incomplete or in disrepair? Broken things are God’s specialty. 

Surrender all your brokenness to God and allow Him a divine re-design. The process may be inconvenient and even painful at times, but endure it with gladness. 

When God revalues a broken thing the results are priceless and beyond astounding, because that is exactly what you are in His eyes!

Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

Philippians 1:3 & 6 “I thank my God every time I remember you… being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.^”

Crash Course

Joseph came from a family line of wealthy livestock herders all the way back to his great-great grandfather, Abraham. How was a sheep herder going to learn the administration skills needed to be second in command to the nation of Egypt? How was he going to go from the pasture to the palace? 

Joseph was favored, handpicked by God for something big and when his jealous brothers threw him into that pit they didn’t realize they were catapulting Joseph into the very thing they hated him for. On the far end of their hatred and jealousy was Joseph’s destiny - one they would eventually bow down to just as Joseph's dream had revealed.

As a slave in Potiphar’s house and the General Manager of a prison he learned the administration skills he was going to need to bring an entire nation through one of the worst famines ever recorded in the known world at that time. He learned protocol for management: how to handle business with all of its accounting and transactions. He learned how to deal with difficult people, criticism, unfair accusation and temptation.  He also learned about forgiveness, mercy, humility, patience and endurance. Joseph received a crash course in Preparation For Royalty 101. School was in session and the curriculum was difficult!

Are you in a place you find uncomfortable, don’t understand or even despise right now? Would you think about it in a different way today? Maybe this time and place is preparation for the greater thing God has planned up ahead. Don’t waste it! Look around, pay attention, apply yourself to wisdom, learn and grow there and in due time you will be promoted from what you don’t see into the clarity of your task and fulfilling purpose. 

God is working in every difficult situation of your life for your good, so work with Him, not against Him, and be encouraged!

 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. Genesis 45:4-8

(Read the entire amazing story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50).