Secluded Place

About 4 months ago, I sat on the floor of my hotel room with Sherri Youngward, listening intently to her friend tell a story. Within minutes, my eyes welled up with tears while I listened to her tender, childlike rendition of the gospel. Suzanne Fischer will be going on a missions trip to Russia and could use financial support, but the last thing she would do is beg for money. If you'd like to go to her website to find out more or download this precious story for free, CLICK HERE.

Matt. 2:10

"Wow it's hot! Stinky and sticky isn't it punkin'?" I asked my daughter as I scrunched up my nose and squinted to make light of the miserable temperature. I shouldn't teach her how to complain but my brain had melted somewhere around "Aisle J" in the grocery parking lot and most of my southern manners were attached.

I opened every door of our van to let the heat demons run free and checked if our "NY State Required" booster seat would fry her like a pancake. Assured of her safety, I carefully hoisted her preschool frame into the van, shoved a bottle of water in her lap and launched the air conditioning while I slid into my own leather skillet for a front seat.

Mindless music played in the background while coherence slowly returned to my thinking as I cooled off.  Twenty minutes later, just as I made the last turn before home, a horrible scream came from the back seat, "Mooooommmmmyyyyyy!!!"

Emergency maternal instincts were triggered so I hit the brakes, swerved off the road to balance on the edge of a ditch, whipped off the seat belt and swung around. "What's wrong?! What happened?!"

Her tiny tears seemed to synchronize with her quivering bottom lip. "You didn't buckle my seat belt."

If I hadn't have seen the genuine fear in her eyes, I might have given her one of the numerous lectures mothers give to typically over-dramatic children. But...she was scared. She looked down and realized that I hadn't done all I could to keep her safe and secure and her vulnerability frightened her.

You can imagine how quickly I got up, wrapped my arms around her, spoke assurances of my love, dried the tears and then buckled her safely in. But I made sure she looked right into my eyes when I said, "Mommy will sometimes make mistakes. But God is your Protector and He will never let anything happen to you unless it's part of His plan. He loves you the most and kept you safe almost the whole way home, didn't He?!" She smiled agreeably so I made my way back to the driver's seat and thanked the Lord in prayer, "Lest YOU Lord, protect this child, I labor in vain to protect her. Thank you...again." (A mother's variation of Psalm 127:1).

When I pulled into the driveway, she said reflectively "He's my Father too Mommy." Now I smiled agreeably as I realized she'd rehearsed what I'd been speaking to her about most of the week; our God is also our Father. At different times and in various ways, I'd been sharing with her the Father heart of God that provides, watches over, instructs, corrects, never leaves and loves so unconditionally, that she never needs to be afraid.

I've realized that it doesn't take too much in life for me to have a sudden sense of vulnerability. Life can be going along at such a high speed that I'm certain the next bump in the road or unexpected curve is going to sending me flying. I can look around at my circumstances and think that the Lord hasn't done all He possibly could to "secure me" and make sure of my safety in lieu of the potential for harm or pain. Fear can come so easily when I lack the assurance of the Lord's love and care.

I jumped out of the van, donned my not-so-stylish gardening gloves and walked confidently to a conglomerate of black raspberry bushes. I'd been warned that getting to the berries would not be easy due to years of neglect in keeping the weeds out and trimming back the branches. But the value of the berries outweighed my imagined discomfort at wading past whatever the curse might have birthed.


I noticed that the perimeter of the bushes held clusters of "easy pluckers." I had ravaged several of the branches before realizing that my gloves had made the force of my touch so insensitive, that I'd accidentally crushed most of those poor guys. There they lay bleeding their purple dye all over the bottom of the bowl while a tiny snail stayed dormant in its protective portable home. 


"Well, that wasn't smart," I mumbled to myself while tearing the scapegoats off my hands.


As the breeze began to pick up, it tossed the prickly weeds and fruit branches from side to side and revealed the buried treasure in the center. Shiny black and pleasantly plump raspberries, twice the size as the bludgeoned bunch in my bowl, filled up the core and invited my hands to come. Since I couldn't reach them from where I was standing, I carefully stepped into a portion of the heavily thorned bush and leaned over as far as I could reach. 


Then it happened. A strong gust of wind blew and whipped every surrounding branch of that bush so hard that I was completely encased by nature's built-in security system. The thorns stuck, punctured, poked, prodded and scraped every exposed area of skin from head to toe. The areas I had clothes on were snared with a Velcro grip making a quick escape impossible.


I've been attacked by opponents in sports, intimidated by bullies in school, even jumped by a drug-crazed teenager in Chicago. But to be ambushed by a squadron of black raspberry branches was a first. 


All I wanted was some fruit...was that so wrong? Wasn't that why they were planted years ago? The berries have medicinal, nutritional and sensational taste qualities for the eater to benefit from. But due to neglect of proper weeding and careful pruning, the sin-caused curse of "thorns, thistles and briers" left the fruit picker with speckled and striped wounds.


Jesus said in John 15:1-4 (NLT) "I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener.² He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. ³ You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you.  Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me."


In just four sentences, I'm reminded that my life, grafted in to the True grapevine, is designed to bear "fruit." That my heavenly Father has a love that never neglects, stops tending, nor ceases from pruning. His goal is that a life will produce more and more fruit and the pruning and washing process comes from the Word of God. It will cut and sever just as surely as it will wash, cleanse and heal. The gardener instructs "Just remain in Me" and you will bear fruit. Despite your growing in a sin-cursed world, surrounded by thorns and briers, when branches have been pruned properly, it bears abundant fruit readily available for the passerby. Fruit that is nourishing, healing, and satisfying to a hungry soul.


Remember that the Gardener's hands are sensitive to what He touches and knows the pressure He applies when fruit is plucked. He knows exactly where to cut a branch so that its amputation will produce more fruit than ever before...but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." (James 1:4)

1. Her eyes were made with the capacity to reflect  
2. There was light
3. There was nothing in her eye, nor anything between us to block her view

I must've read the first verse at least six times before moving on this morning. That word "full" literally means that Jesus was completely saturated and permeated in His soul with the Holy Spirit's presence. The Spirit then led the Son straight into the wilderness. I'm not a Bible scholar, but the Word doesn't say that the chief or sole purpose was to be tested by the devil.The wilderness was a place where David often found refuge and quietness from his enemy, while Israel fell in sin to the temptations that lie there. According to the scriptures it's not an easy place to live.

But in that difficult place, when a soul remains steadfast in God, resists temptations from flesh and enemy, spiritual strength and power is granted by the Holy Spirit. It doesn't say Jesus had power to resist first. He had the fulness of the Spirit's presence. Yet, in His weakness He swung the weapon He was given and emerged fully equipped with the Spirit's power for the ministry that lie ahead of Him.

His resistance to Satan came with His declaration of what the Word of God was in His life, Who His heart worshiped, and the wisdom He lived by under His Father's authority. If you find yourself in a spiritual wilderness, not led there from sin in your life, be assured that the Lord is with you. And in your weakness, use the same weapon Jesus did. Jam.4:7 "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Make sure that His declarations are in harmony with your own. There is the key to victory and insight into true "strength training."

I'm not sure what you call those "rules of life" that everyone seems to know by the time you get to adulthood, but I violated one of the chief commands. "Thou shalt not grocery shop on an empty stomach." There's some kind of "alteration" that happens initially to your senses and then an "altar-ation" occurs between you and food.

Peanut butter cups transform into an invaluable protein. The smell of freshly baked bread makes you pick up artisan loaves that cost more than filet mignon. You become convinced that you will make, bake, try and fry foods that in reality, will never see the light of day until you dust the pantry years later.  Items that repulsed you with their 26-letter chemical ingredients now seem to draw you like a tractor beam while fixated on the box's embellished photo. You believe every promise (Slim Fast?), visit every sample table (Spam what?), and focus on the miles you just earned by charging all of it on your Visa.  Hunger...right feeling...wrong timing.

On the contrary, I found myself sitting in front of my Bible not too long ago asking the Lord to stir my hunger. Not the kind of hunger for sweet imitations of His truth nor misapplied promises that may never see the light of day. Not a hunger for tainted interpretations of Who Jesus is that embellish a certain characteristic of His nature. I didn't want to only sample His delicacies through devotionals either. I asked Jesus if He could stir a ferocious appetite deep within my heart that nothing on earth would satisfy but Him. For His righteousness, relationship, and the revelation of the kingdom I am to pursue above all. It was a prayer He faithfully answered...so let's feast today!