Learning

“…and find out what pleases the Lord.” 

Ephesians 5:10

Today’s walk was full…full of quiet and peace. The very crackle of the bamboo under my feet seemed an intrusion. I took a copy of the “Labyrinth PRAYER Guide” with me, which I had not done in quite a while. The Scriptures practically jumped off the page.

It begins with Matthew 11:28, The Message Version, and in part it says to “Learn the unforced rhythms of Grace.” First, this is one of my favourite verses of Scripture.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

The other thing today, is that word “learn”. It seemed to echo in my head throughout this afternoon. To learn the Lord’s Grace, unforced ~ being accepted by me into the TRUE reality of each moment. This brought my prayer to ask that He ‘search my heart, O God’. As I looked down, just under some bamboo leaves there was something sticking out, so I reached to pick it up. It was one of the little wooden hearts from the cross, on the other side of the labyrinth!

He does that, ya know. He reaches down ~ searches and finds that which is lost ~ our hearts, buried under the stuff of this world and far from His cross and He faithfully brings it back into right step with His own heart. He leads us into the Center of His will for each moment. Thank you, Lord that You search for us, find us, lead and teach us ~ O, may we learn!

Learn….the echo of the day. Another word in that phrase is “Grace”.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Galatians 5:22 ~ NIV

Did you notice that Grace is not a fruit of the Spirit? It isn’t in that list! Grace is God working His will out in us, thru us. Grace is a Fruit of HIS Presence and Peace. A part of our learning Grace is to look for Him in all things, to “find out what pleases the Lord.” We cannot “be” Grace, or become Grace-ful. We are only Grace-filled….unforced, given over and offered UP and that is what changes our earthbound hearts.

Later, when I was typing this up, it was really sweet to see how these Scriptures from Matthew and Ephesians worked together in a paraphrasing sort of way ~

And find out what pleases the Lord by learning the unforced rhythms of GRACE….

 

Posture

Ok, so I would say that you’re going to say that I’m crazy, but I know that y’all know that already! So, let’s just jump in here…

As you walk to our labyrinth, there are lots of places that branches and twigs are in the way. I do promise that I have trimmed, but maybe not in the way that would be expected. You see, approaching the labyrinth is all about posture…as it should be with all our approaches to God.

See? There are small branches to lean under at the beginning and a whole duranta bush to bend under at the turn AND that is all before you get into the labyrinth! As you enter, there are other twigs and branches along the path and they’re left there for the very purpose of posture. There are bamboo left in the middle of the path and other things intentionally there to give us pause, to place an “intentional” step in the middle of the path.

In our lives, God does the same thing! He places the branches and bamboo right in the way...on purpose. What we often fail to see, is that He really did trim the path and make a way clear for us…we just need to seek our path in the “right” posture, in order to seek His hand at work in the path.

Let’s face it, all of us would just love to run to God with no attention to our posture…and we do. We throw prayers heavenward with no regard to our heart, just our “need”. Scripture does tell us to come ‘just as you are’ and we should, but to continue to run ‘just as we are’ over and over into the presence of our Father, indicates a life unchanged.

We need to seek a place of posture, of growth and humbled heart. It is within His presence that we are changed and molded into the posture of His child ~ One who knows his/her place in the kingdom of God’s love. That is not a place of self deprecation, serving to symbolize some sense of humbleness, or a place of good deeds….it lays “souly” in our posture.

~ Bent and recognizing that our Father loves with a Love we cannot define.

~ Yielded and seeking His desires, not our momentary wants.

~ Surrendered and open to God’s plans for our every step.

~ Enthralled with the Presence that embraces for eternity.

Our posture to receive God’s goodness is key to bringing His reality to our earthbound time. His ways truly are not our ways…

Open the eyes of their hearts, and let the light of Your truth flood in. Shine Your light on the hope You are calling them to embrace. Reveal to them the glorious riches You are preparing as their inheritance.

Ephesians 1:8 ~ The Voice

Undergrowth

Have you ever noticed that it is hard to notice just how much undergrowth there really is? 

So, here’s how it happened…I went out to clean more of the labyrinth today. Thought I’d start with the gate area and work my way in. I climbed over the wood pile, with my dear Ruby at my heals, and we started in. You see, the duranta has really pushed out, then over, because of all the recent rains. So, the idea was to just trim off the dead wood and lift it up a little. WELL, we got under there and it was a mess. I started to doubt whether or not I could get this done, even with Ruby’s help!

But, as I started to pull on the branches, the dead ones just snapped right off, one right after the other. The clippers went right thru everything and we hauled it off and were done in no time!

Like lots of “things” in our life, it is a good idea to get under them and take a look for any dead wood. There are many things in our life that have pretty flowers like a duranta, but they don’t stay pretty for long if we don’t sort thru and look for God to lift things up. As I was trimming, I was thinking, that the trimming part wasn’t so bad…it was the getting myself here to do it in the first place that was the hard part! Oh, but the trimming was soooo worth it!

We humans were never meant to cart all our dead wood around thru life! All that stuff is heavy, it keeps us looking backwards and most importantly…how can we grow in the “right” direction with all that extra weight? I know I’m mixing metaphors here, but this made me think of how God had the Israelites pick up stones from the Jordan and build a memorial after they got across the river, in order to mark this part of the journey  to learn from!

We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.”

Joshua 4:6 & 7 ~ NLT

Perhaps, the better solution is to be able to look back and see cords of wood along our path and know that God trimmed and lifted the weight for us, as we walked with Him.

Now, I’m not sayin'  that all trimming is easy and light weight! As a matter of fact, because this job was so “easy”, I decided to keep going and take out a few of the big bamboo stalks that had died back. That trimming is a whole nother story! It was hard to saw down and it was quite the wrestling match to get out! But it is done….AND I have decided to put all the bamboo sticks and poles into the pallet fence. I hope over time, it will make for a  nice visual block. But, back to the wrestling match. Short version? I won.

Not all the dead wood of life is easy to clear out. Nobody said it would be easy, but it does need to be done. It is sooo easy to get buried under our circumstances, attitudes and perspectives that we forget who we are! 

We’re God’s children…so, we’re never alone when we’re clearing out the undergrowth. Sometimes it is a breeze of a job and sometimes not, but the beautiful part is that He’s got something for us to learn in every situation. He can teach us from the cord wood and use those piles to block out our tendencies to reach back and by doing so, not fully live in the day He has made for us….

This is the Lord’s doing,
    and it is wonderful to see.
This is the day the Lord has made.
    We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:23 & 24

Labyrinth Time

I took the scripture from my devotional with me to walk the labyrinth yesterday….first cool morning in months! It was lovely outside, with a little breeze and lots of happy, chirping birds. As I walked, I was trying to concentrate and read some of 2 Samuel that I had brought with me, but ya know, I hadn’t cleaned up all the sheaths yet and I got distracted. It wasn’t till I walked in and saw all these bamboo stalks on the ground that I figured out the “bigger” problem. I heard myself say out loud, “We need more labyrinth time”…

In my time of need I called upon the Eternal One;
        I called to my True God for help.
    He heard my voice from His temple,
        and my cry came to His ears.

II Samuel 22:7 ~ The Voice Version

…and we all need labyrinth time! Life gets messy, no doubt, so we need that set apart space to navigate from. The oasis of “be still and know” time, set aside in our day, each day is where our steps are made firm and sure.

Just like our labyrinth becomes a mess, we don’t notice it at first, but it happens over time. There is, of course, just the regular stuff…leaves and a few branches falling from the constant breeze we have here, but life has its storms that sneak up on us. The Labyrinth’s “storm” looks like a few cute squirrels who have decided to eat away at the new bamboo and because I wasn’t out here every day, I had no idea! They have been chewing off the tops about 20 feet up in the air and then eating the exposed parts. Sound familiar?  Like our lives, we can just wander around in the same ‘ole paths, looking at the same ‘ole mess and never notice what’s being eaten away at.

God hears us when we call out, but that’s the catch, isn’t it? We have to call Him…and more often than a 911 call in emergencies.  Goodness knows, in this world we call, text and skpye with the whole planet! I, the non-theologian person, have a thought here. I think the key is in our distracted, messy, busy, work/play-aholic attitude we’ve lost the desire for the stillness...real, Holy Stillness.

Please don’t get me wrong…we seek Him, but so many of the times, He’s just in the midst of the list of things to do. 

Our world revolves around the immediate need, but our God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow ~ no matter our time Zone, He is in our “immediate”! Our Labyrinth time is what pushes the world back and brings Glory into the moment!

I was soooo thankful for the reminder this morning of more labyrinth time and as I was walking back out of the labyrinth, I began picking up some of the bamboo sticks and this was the last of the Scripture I read….

So You are great, O Eternal Lord. No one else like You exists, and there is no god greater than You, as we should know from everything we have heard.

II Samuel 7:22 ~ The Voice Version

“As we should know…” Wow! I had to laugh! Maybe a little more "labyrinth time" and stillness and I could know and hear more….and again, I was thankful and began to leave. As I walked to the edge of the fence and lifted my right hand toward the fence, this is what the bamboo looked like in my hand.

Really! I didn’t stage this. For some, this might not seem like a big deal, but to me….even the sticks, the stuff in our hands can be made to speak of Jesus! We don’t have to put our own efforts to it, time with our Lord invites Him into our “immediate”.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
    establish the work of our hands for us—
    yes, establish the work of our hands.

Psalm 90:17 ~ NIV