Tag: devotions for gardening

When Temporary Lasts a Long Time

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It is cold and I am whiny about the cold.

It’s the the kind of wet and gray cold that seeps into your bones and leaves you chilly despite fuzzy socks, layers of clothing, soft blankets, and hot tea.

Maybe it’s less about the thermometer and more about the bitterness of the wind and the colorless sky that’s convinced me to abandon my afternoon walk and retreat inside.

There are certainly people and places a whole lot colder than I am. Our temps outside haven’t even dipped below freezing and we’ve not seen any snow. So I know there’s nothing really to complain about and I know that winter has barely started here and that colder days are still to come.

This week, though, as this Virginia girl has felt a little overwhelmed by winter, I received my first seed catalogue from our local nursery.

There’s hope!

Spring, my friends, is coming.

This is my favorite and most necessary reminder each year in January. The bulbs will begin shooting green up through the soil soon. Tulips and daffodils will bloom in just a few weeks. There will be color and sun and warmth and the best of all, new and renewed life.

On Sunday, I chatted with a friend about our concerns for kids and teens during this pandemic and how many teens we personally know who have begun taking medication for depression. We mourned all this has cost them and how many of them are beginning to feel hopeless.

I told her the same thing I’ve been saying to my kids for about ten months, “we’ll be okay.” All this is temporary sorrow and temporary loss. We mourn, but we rest in God’s faithfulness and pray for those around us fighting much harder situations.

The truth is, though, this temporary sure is lasting a long time.

In fact, ten months of temporary is starting to feel rather permanent.

Paul wrote:

For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal

(2 Cor 4:17-18 CSB)

Maybe one of the transformations happening in me in this long stretch of temporary and this seemingly endless “momentary light affliction” is that this life feels less satisfying and more uncomfortable.

It’s hard to long for the eternal weight of glory when life down here feels pretty cozy and when the joys of this life satisfy all of the longings in my soul.

But we’re meant to long for more than that.

Ecclesiastes says:

 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 NKJV

All of this winter discontent and frustration with temporary affliction is stirring up the eternity God has placed in my heart. I want to see His beautiful finished work. I want to see His glory and the fulfillment of His promises.

I want to hear His declaration, “It is finished” and see how He is making everything new.

And this longing for eternity is God-designed so that I’m drawn to Him and so that I seek His presence continually and relentlessly.

It’s a sacred and holy restlessness, a discontent because nothing here can ever satisfy and I can truly only be content in Him.

In the same way, the knowledge that spring is promised and assured compels us to push through winter. This cold dormancy and this grayness will not last forever, so we don’t settle here.

Instead, we look beyond because God will bring us to something far more beautiful and glory-filled than we could imagine.

Here, though, in the middle of this long stretch of temporary, this “momentary light affliction,” in this cold, gray winter, I do something more than look forward to the better that’s coming.

The Psalmist wrote:

Be a rock of refuge for me,
where I can always go.
Give the command to save me,
for you are my rock and fortress.

Psalm 71:3 CSB

Our afflictions are tempory, but our God is constant. He is faithful. He does not abandon us in the middle of sorrow.

He is a rock of refuge “where I can always go.” So, even when the temporary drags on and deliverance delays….I go over and over, relentlessly, continually, regularly, day-in and day-out, minute-by-minute straight to Jesus and take refuge in Him.

He is the endurance and encouragement we need

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“Mom, I see the flowers we planted!”

We planted bulbs in November and by the very next day, my son started looking for signs of life, little green sprouts pushing up through the soil.  He’s been on the alert since then.

But I know how this works.  Those crocuses and tulips aren’t going to push their little green noses up through the dirt until about February.

He helped me dig each of the holes down and the dropped each bulb into its new earthy home.

He pushed the dirt over the seeds and he stepped down and we high-fived when it was all done.

So, now he wants results.  He wants to see the fruit of our labors.  Let’s have some flowers already!  Let’s see the growth now!

Maybe he’s like most of us, wanting things fast, impressive, instant, and now.

But James wrote in his epistle:

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand….Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful (James 5:7-8, 11).

The farmer is in this for the long-haul.  He isn’t in it for instant results or some overnight turnaround.

He knows what the plants need first.  They need early rains and they need late rains, all before the precious fruit of the earth is carried in at harvest.

We need this.  We’re not overnight bloomers.  We’re ripening fruit, needing the early rains, needing the late rains, needing Jesus to be at work all before we can be pulled off the vine.

Sometimes perhaps we just give up too soon.  Sometimes we just get too frustrated, too  discouraged, too shaken up by our plans tumbled into disarray.

Things break. Conflict occurs. People disappoint. I disappoint. I forget.  I mess up. I lose my temper. I make the wrong decision and I forget grace. The schedule suffocates. The expectations of others weigh heavy.

Whatever the form of brokenness we face, it is broken, and here we are with the same-old, same-old choice.

Give up on the fruit.

Or this:

Be patient.

Establish our heart.

Remain steadfast.

This speaks peace to me.  This says that even when the fruit delays, even when the ground seems interminably hard, even when the winter lasts and the rains don’t come, even then my heart is rooted deep down in Jesus.

So, the unexpected doesn’t distort my perspective.

I am at peace.

The interruptions and the disruptions don’t toss me into fear.

I am at peace.

The conflict doesn’t knot me up in a tangled mess.

I am at peace.

We have patience.  We shake off the mess and get back up and try again because that’s what it takes to be steadfast; that’s what it means to endure.

When James said, “Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast,” he reminds us that the blessing isn’t for those who ran fast, grew tired, and then gave up.

The blessing is for those who remain. 

God blesses steadfastness, the stick-to-it, never-giving-up, endurance of day-after-day obedience and faithfulness and growth.

here’s the good news: we don’t do this alone.

James finishes that passage with the reminder we need that God “is compassionate and merciful ”

He helps us.  He loves us.  He doesn’t expect us to conquer and hold fast all on our own.

This is what Romans says:

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus,  that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 15:5-6 ESV).

He is the God of endurance and encouragement.

What we need on those days when we just want to crawl under the covers and give up, on the days we’re overwhelmed by the mess we’re in or the mistakes we’ve made, on the days when we think it’s just not going to  get better and we’ll never see any fruit…what we need is Him.

He is the endurance and encouragement we need to obey and then obey and then obey again, one step of faithfulness after another step of faithfulness in a long line of faithfulness over time.

Take heart.  Be encouraged.  The fruit will come.  The life will break through the frozen dirt and there will be beauty and harvest if we remain, endure, have hope, and do not give up.