Day 26 – A season for this, a season for that..
Scripture focus: I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. Ecclesiastes 3:10-14 The Message
A poem by Wendell Berry (Collected Poems San Francisco: North Point, 1985, pp. 190-191)
I am trying to teach my mind To bear the long, slow growth
Of the fields, and to sing
Of its passing while it waits.
The farm must be made a form,
Endlessly bringing together
Heaven and earth, light
And rain building, dissolving,
Building back again
The shapes and actions of the ground.
Eugene Peterson uses this poem to launch his own poetic metaphor. He sees in the connectedness of farm life the same kind of connection that must take place within us, as we relate to God and his word. Peterson urges us to submit our lives to the text of God's word in a messy manner. Nothing can be treated out of context, or in an isolated fashion, or else the whole endeavor falls apart. There's a right time to plant and sow and fertilize. If a person mucks up the order, there's going to be trouble. God invites us into his story and dares us to dance with him. The adventure is bigger than our quirks and needs, our cultural limitations and personal ambitions. It's not neat and tidy and scientific. It's an epic story that helps account for daily life by framing it in the context of eternity. Enter into this story, and our soul is reformed. It is overtaken by the spirit of God, and instead of being a collection of emotions and temperament, it becomes our moral, spiritual, real life God-personal self. Now we're cooking. Our body still has its appetites. But spirit and soul begin to boogey together. And we can begin the process of giving ourselves permission to allow God to have his way with us – in his time.
Recommended reading: Psalm 33-35
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