The Broken Branch

A few weeks ago I was picking some plumeria blossoms for the ladies in my hula group to wear in their hair.

(Wow. What a Hawaii-specific sentence that just was.)

All the flowers were pretty high up so I had to pull the limbs down towards myself to reach them, and I ended up accidentally pulling off one whole branch. Whoops.

So I took it home. At home I pulled off the flowers I wanted and thought about making some sort of arrangement with the remaining branch and leaves.

Then I noticed it was swarming with ants, so instead I screamed and threw the whole thing into the backyard.

Except the flowers, of course. I just rinsed the bugs off those so we could still wear them in our hair. (Shh... Don't tell my hula sisters.)

Anyways, I forgot about the branch until I was in the backyard with the twins and noticed it still blooming. I  was surprised, because I knew it had been a while since I'd tossed it back there.

I counted back to remember when my halau had danced.

(A halau is a hula dance group. See how you learn something new every day?)

I realized it had been more than two weeks since that branch had broken off the tree. But that thing was still industriously blooming away! I guess it was drawing from the sap it had stored and the buds it had already made.

But of course, I knew it wasn't going to last, separated from the tree like that. It was only a matter of time before that branch withered and died.

In fact, the branch was dead already; it just didn't know it yet. It had died the minute it broke from the tree.

That branch was in denial. Although it was still working hard to bear its beautiful blossoms, all its effort was wasted while it was apart from the tree. It was busy busy busy, and it appeared from the outside to be healthy, but inside it was dead already.

Have you ever met any people like that?

Have you ever been a person like that? I have.

John 15:5 (Jesus said,) “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing."

Lord, help me to stay connected to You, the true vine, and not spin my wheels trying to perform through my own efforts. Amen.

A Thorny Issue

Sometimes an incident happens that reveals your own heart. (Hint: often not in a good way.) Here is how I saw mine:

A few weeks ago a friend of mine from the women's Bible study I attend at the military chapel came to visit the church I attend off-post. This woman is someone I like and respect very much, and so I hoped my church would make a good impression on her.

Things were going along fine as we moved through announcements, and the opening song, and passing-the-peace, et cetera. Then a young woman got up to dance during the offering.


"Thorny Issue" by Sara Wright
(image from speedwaydailyphoto.blogspot.com)

As I heard the opening strains of the song she was performing to, I froze. "When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay..."

This is the beginning of a rap song by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis called "Same Love." It's basically about being accepting of people who are gay.

And it turned out that was the topic of the sermon for the day as well.

Wow. Talk about controversial!!

Now, I'm going off on a little tangent here: I was raised to believe that it is a sin to practice homosexuality. And as far as I can tell, that is what the Bible teaches. But truthfully, I'll be the first to admit I don't understand everything in the Bible, and that many things can be open to interpretation. This one of those tough issues that I don't know what to do with.

In any case, I know that Jesus himself was the first one to embrace the sinner. (Matthew 9:11-13; Mark 2: 15-17)  And the Bible also says it is a sin to hate your brother in your heart, (Matthew 5:22) and that you should love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39, Leviticus 19:18 ).

So the bottom line is, I DO believe in being accepting of people who are gay.

I DO believe that God loves us all equally, and that he wants us to love each other as well.

But, sitting there in church, I realized that I'm not quite as loving-my-neighbor as I should be.

To be honest, I was more worried about what my respectable friend thought about ME than about what Jesus wanted me to do.

That sounds ugly, doesn't it?

Pride is not a pretty thing.

After church my friend left as quickly as she could. She did not speak to me. I knew she had probably been offended.

I started to wonder if maybe I should have been offended as well. Maybe we should be taking a harder stance on sin, and we shouldn't be so let's-love-everyone-because-we're-all-sinners. Was my church wrong? Was I wrong?

I thought about this all day, and during the night I got up and prayed. I read several Bible verses, which I'll detail below if you're interested, and wrote down the conclusion I came to:

"I have been wrestling with a certain issue,

and I have learned that I don't have the answer.

This is quite unsatisfactory to me. I prefer to have all the answers.

But I am not God. Must I really be reminded of that? I am not God.

I don't understand everything, and I'm not going to.

(Job 38:4) Where was I when He laid the foundations of the earth?

I was nowhere. I was nothing.

God is God and there is no other.

He has shown me the path I am to walk, (Micah 6:8)

to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with Him.

Why am I looking around at the paths of others?

The Lord has called me to pray for others, (Romans 8:26)

and the Spirit will help me in my weakness.

But He has not called me to stand in judgment over anyone or anything.

There may be those who are called to this; I don't know.

But it's not for me. I will trust in Him alone."

(Besides the Scriptures named above, I also read Isaiah 54:10-13, Luke 7:36-50, and Job 42:1-10.)

I think the clear message I received was to obey what God has shown me to do, and STOP WORRYING ABOUT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING AND THINKING.

This is easier said than done, Lord. Help me to follow You.

The Anti-Fruit

What is the opposite of the Fruit of the Spirit? (The Anti-Fruit, if you will.)

You know in Galatians 5 Paul lists both the works of the flesh and the Fruit of the Spirit.

But are the works of the flesh the opposite of the Fruits? As he says, the works of the flesh are OBVIOUS:
1. Adultery
2. Fornication
3. Uncleanness
4. Lewdness
5. Idolatry
6. Sorcery
7. Hatred
8. Contentions
9. Jealousies
10. Outbursts of wrath
11. Selfish ambitions
12. Dissensions
13. Heresies
14. Envy
15. Murders
16. Drunkenness
17. Revelries
(and the like)

These are the things we humans do, all on our own. BAD things.

But the Fruits of the Spirit are what the Spirit of God can produce through us:
1. Love
2. Joy
3. Peace
4. Patience
5. Kindness
6. Gentleness
7. Faithfuless
8. Goodness
9. Self-Control

So when I look at List #1 versus List #2, I feel pretty okay. I mean, I may not have the second list down, but at least I'm not all over that first list.

You won't catch me (lewdly) half-nekkid and falling-down drunk on reality TV. Or casting spells and whatnot. I'm not committing adultery or murdering anyone. I'm pretty clean. I don't even hate anybody! Whew!

Still though... I notice jealousies AND envy are on the list there, along with (gulp) selfish ambition. I might sometimes have a little problem with those... you know, internally. Not so anyone would notice.

But, I figure those aren't the worst sins on the list, right? I mean, which of the BAD things does Paul caution against the most here?

Here's the last verse of Galatians chapter 5:

 ²⁶ "Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another."

Wait a minute... Did he just bring up jealousy and selfishness AGAIN? AFTER the list of the fruits?

Maybe Paul is trying to tell us something.

The works of the flesh are obvious and outward, but the fruit of the Spirit comes from within.

So the opposite of the good fruit from the Spirit, is the bad fruit: the Anti-Fruit. And it's also from within. It's just like fruit sometimes goes bad from inside without showing any signs on the surface.

So the little sins that no one sees: envy, self-centeredness, and the like, are the rottenness that threatens to rob our lives of the Spirit's true fruit, eating away at us from the inside.

Ewwww:

(image from tumblr.com)

Lord, help me to guard against the trap of unconfessed sin, the enemy of Your fruit in my life.