thursday thought

our worship leader sent this to the group, asking us to watch this clip and really focus on what the message is to us. I wasn't sure what to post today, and then this came to mind. It reiterates what the main point in stormie's praying through the deeper issues of your marriage spoke loudly and clearly to me. you can deny it all you like, rationalize it, justify it and even attempt to minimize it, but the truth is still that ... the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9JgrJjyNzg

life doesn't HAVE to be a slippery slope if we examine our motives and actions through the wisdom of Scripture. nothing crumbles in a day.

while we were on the mission field, my husband and I were rudely awoken in the wee hours of the morning by a terrifying sound ... a tree had split at the very roots and crashed down on the fence just feet away from our bedroom wall. the next day, we heard from a friend, via facebook, that there had been an earthquake (7.2 on the scale) in Indonesia at the exact moment that this tree fell in our backyard. so it would be easy, then, to put two and two together and say that the earthquake, this natural disaster, caused the demise of the tree, right?

wrong.

the thing we learned about trees in Papua is that they are hollow in their cores. trees come and go in that land all the time. what looks strong and stable on the outside, even to the point of bearing fruit, is really just a shell, living for a few years then it is cut down or falls on its own.

the same goes for us. I can be a powerful force in many lives if I choose to be, saying all the right things and seeming to be really in love with the Lord, all the while cold and empty inside, not really sure that I care to say "no" to what I should, or to be truthful in my words, or ... you get the idea.

I want to be like a tree, planted by the streams of living water, trusting, growing, sowing.