Month: January 2015

Here comes the sun

/ Patsy Kuipers / Leave a comment

I try not to complain about the weather. As a dedicated gardener, I know plants need the rain every bit as much as they need the sun. However, for the past week or so, the sunny South had been anything but. One cold, cloudy, drizzly day followed another in somber progression until I finally succumbed, sadly lamented the lack of sunshine and spent the better part of one day earlier this week in tears.

Yesterday the glorious sphere of light finally reappeared, warming the earth and restoring my customary optimistic outlook. There was renewed activity around the bird feeder, which had been woefully devoid of the happy twittering of my feathered friends on those seemingly endless dreary days. A squirrel scampered back and forth on the deck railing, plotting strategy for an attack on the feeder (which he wisely didn’t try!) The violas planted by my mailbox, drooping after the cold days and frigid nights, began to lift their heads toward the sunlight. Indeed all of us were buoyed by the sun’s return.

The sun shone brightly again today, beckoning me outside to check on my beloved plants. The busyness of the holidays and the recent cold temperatures had deterred me from my practice of walking the property on a regular basis.  I began my afternoon by removing last year’s spent foliage from a number of perennials and then went in search of new growth. I didn’t have to look far. Even though the garden may appear lifeless and barren, plants are alive and well, preparing for a new season. Finding these signs of life gives me great joy and fills me with hope, just like it has every year since I first faced the task of cleaning up the beds by myself (see “Consider it pure joy”, July 1, 2014).

As the succession of overcast days left me feeling dejected, wondering if the sun would ever reappear, there are times when a spiritual chill can settle upon us. Worries and fears cloud our perspective, leading us to question the presence of the Son. Yet, just as the sun is there when we can’t see it or feel its warmth, the Son has promised to be with us always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20). He will guide, sustain and protect us through all the seasons of our lives until the day when we dwell with Him in the City that will not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God will give it light and the Lamb will be its lamp (Revelation 21:23).

Put off, put on

/ Patsy Kuipers / 1 Comment

In October, I posted “Ode to a Crape Myrtle” in which I extolled the many delightful features of one of the trees I hold in highest esteem in my landscape. The numerous desirable characteristics allow crape myrtles the distinction of being multiple-seasons-of-interest plants.  One of my favorite traits, its exfoliating bark, provided the spiritual tie-in for that post, the mandate to put off the old and put on the new.  Now that a new year is upon us, a time when we often take stock of where we’ve been and where we want to go, it seems appropriate to delve more deeply into the concept of putting off and putting on.

In one of several recorded confrontations with the Pharisees, Jesus warned it isn’t enough to become presentable on the outside by putting something off. Superficial change isn’t what’s required. Instead, it is necessary to embrace Jesus and put on his ways or risk finding yourself in a worse state than before. We find the story in Matthew 12: “When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.”

Fortunately, Scripture is full of examples of not only what to put off, but also what to put on. A passage in Ephesians 4 is one of the most comprehensive on the subject.  Some of the paired put offs/put ons therein include: falsehood/truth; stealing/making a living honestly; unwholesome talk/speaking that which builds others up; bitterness, rage, and anger/kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. It seems like a daunting task, this business of becoming new, but Scripture assures us “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Just like the crape myrtle gradually sheds its outer bark, exposing the beauty that lies beneath, we can be certain the Spirit will help us put off our old ways, revealing more and more the One whose attributes we are called to put on.