Month: June 2016

 

I live in gorgeous farming country in Pennsylvania and I see huge silos everywhere, all sizes and styles. But, being a city girl, beyond my freezer, I have no understanding of crop storage. The only thing I know about those huge structures is that they are full of a promise of provision. It makes me wonder about the silos that Joseph filled for Pharaoh during the 7 year period of prosperity. I have a lot of ferret questions about those silos, past and present. For instance, why are most of them round and not square and how do they fill the silos, from the top or the bottom? The ancient silos in Egypt had stair cases that lead to the top and most of their structures were underground so they weren’t very tall, but modern silos…. no stairs. Hum! So, do they use a crane to fill them from the top?  How much grain will they hold? How do they keep the silage from rotting or molding? Does the building material matter? Some are brick, some stone. Newer ones are like big steel buildings. See what I mean? I used to just drive past them and they were no more than a part of the scenery until I had an amazing experience, God was teaching me more about His farming system on the other side of sowing and reaping… stores of grace heaped up for us! Woop! Woop!

God has a way of illustrating and explaining things to me by putting images in my “imagination” and then He teaches me what the image means.   One night, many years ago, I saw a massive ancient silo in a field. It reached so high that I couldn’t see the top. But there were clouds around the top and a white dove was circling it.  It was made of stone and it had two gigantic wooden doors at the bottom, held shut by a massive wooden cross beam. (I wish I was an artist so I could draw the picture for you!) At the bottom of the doors there were many little holes gnawed in the wood so that grain would pour out of the bottom of the silo onto the ground. There were hundreds of little creatures feeding on the grain… birds, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks (maybe even a ferret or two!). They were all having a fine feast and I just knew that they thought this was the most ample supply of food that they would ever have and they were rejoicing in the plentiful flow. I watched the scene for a while and the grain continued to pour out from under the door as the little animals gnawed bigger holes and scratched out the grain and more and more creatures gathered for the feast. It was beautiful to watch! I couldn’t take my eyes off of the little creatures and how happy they seemed to be. Beyond an initial glance upward at the beginning of the vision, I never looked up again, I just focused on the bountiful feast and the little creatures. I don’t know how long I watched before the Holy Spirit, the teacher and revelator, spoke to my heart.

There are 2 verses that matter here, John 14:26 “…the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you”;   John 16: 13-15 “Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak; and he will show you things to come……he shall receive of mine and shall show it to you. All things that the Father has are mine; therefore said I, that he shall take of mine and show it unto you.” And with that, The Holy Spirit began to teach me about the silo.

He explained that the creatures in the grain are the “Church”. They, like me, are drawn to the bounty lying on the ground, and they never look up past the holes in the bottom of the doors. They believe they are feasting on God’s best blessings and that this supply is as good as it gets because they rely on what they see. And as far as they can see, scattered across the field, the grain keeps flowing.   They believe that God is good and God’s grace is abundant but words like “good” and “abundant grace” are defined, in them, by their own personal experiences. In their minds, God is as big and good and full of grace as their experiences tell them He is.

The Holy Spirit told me to look up toward the top of the silo, so I strained my eyes trying to see all the way to top of it, of course, that was impossible. I suddenly felt weak and dwarfed, overcome by the vast size of it, and then He quoted this scripture to me. I Cor. 2: 9-10 “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God (I still love that phrase!) has revealed them unto us by His Spirit…”   OMG!!!!! I was stunned!

The Holy Spirit went on saying that God, the ultimate farmer, has a storehouse of His grace and blessings that cannot be comprehended by the mind of man. And He desires to show Himself to His people in the TRUE and FULL abundance of blessings that He has stored up for them. But, sadly, He is unable to do so. Of course, my question was… WHY? His answer…“because the church is standing in the way”! WHAT? How can we be in His way? And the Spirit went on… If He opened the doors and allowed the deluge of blessings to flow all at once, it would overwhelm (the creatures) His church! Some creatures would scatter in fear and never return and some would be overcome and buried by the flood, of course, some would react quickly and stay in the flow, but the feast, as they know it, would be wiped out. Would that mean that the church would be shattered by the impact of the deluge? I couldn’t even think of what God was saying! All I knew, in my heart, was that the silo was filled with a fearful, awesome and overwhelming store… who could ever handle that?

Then, the Holy Spirit gave me a flash photo in my mind and I saw another picture of God barely cracking the doors on the silo, and The Holy Spirit was unleashed on the baby church in Jerusalem. The Pharisees and Sadducees never knew what hit them, they were buried by the deluge and they were never revived! The Holy Spirit explained that they were putting their faith in their own ability to chew the holes in the door and scratch out the grain for themselves. They had no idea of the true source of those blessings, they never looked up! The sound of the wind (the rush of the blessing flowing out) was powerful enough to bring thousands of curious on-lookers to see what was going on, the disciples, who were expecting to receive “something”, heard the deafening sound, saw the fire dancing above their heads and out of their mouths came tongues they had never learned. They were suddenly swimming in the abundance of grace that was pouring out from the doors of the silo and they boldly began to invite the on- lookers to share in the flow of God’s blessings. You see, they had looked up when Jesus left them and the Angel told them to keep looking up because Jesus would come again the way He left. Yup! Today’s church would definitely be in the way! Some would ride the wave because they had looked up and understood the silo, some would run in fear because they didn’t even know there was a silo, they only know the blessing flowing from under the doors by their own good works and, finally, some would be overwhelmed and buried, self-absorbed in their own pile of blessings thinking they had amassed the blessings themselves, never knowing what hit them…   I wanted to cry. Would the doors open further, would the new participants get in the way of the outpouring or would the gush keep coming, carrying everyone with it?

I was suddenly taken back to the original image of the silo, the doors were closed and the little creatures were safe. Now, I could feel God’s heart! He loves those little creatures but He also has a need to open the doors of the silo to let His full blessing flow. The world, which he loves with equal passion, is in desperate need of the Silo’s contents, they have been in spiritual famine too long. What is to be done? My heart was broken!

The Holy Spirit continued to quote more of I Cor. 2: 10- 16 “…The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God… Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God; that we might KNOW the things that are freely given to us of God….which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man (a man who defines God by his own fleshly experiences – my explanation) receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned…But we have the mind of Christ.”

So that was it…we have to get the church to LOOK UP! We have to discern, spiritually, God’s silo filled with the abundance of God’s grace and blessings with a potential of power that is beyond our understanding. (Eph. 3: 20 “Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and ] do superabundantly more than all we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes or dreams]…”)  And we have to be prepared and so strong and rooted in His love that, instead of being overwhelmed by that unfathomable gush of grace, those blessings will flow through us to the world instead of crushing us! Whew! No pun intended… but that is a “tall” order!

I think all of us sense that the creation time clock is running down, now. Jesus, in his explanation of the end times (Matt. 24, Luke 22) said it would be like the days of Noah, people would be eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage and, in Genesis, we see that there was also great violence and rage and every imagination of men was evil continually. But Noah, who dared to look up found his deliverance and blessing in God’s storehouse. The skies opened and the land was covered with water, but Noah was supremely blessed, the ark was full of the outpouring of God’s grace.  In II Timothy 3: 1-7, men in the last days are described as totally reprobate… having a form of religion but denying the power thereof, ever learning but never coming to the TRUTH! Jesus says “look up”….   In the midst of the worst storms, the silo still stands strong and it has the blessings of God that we need, not only to survive, but to thrive as we farm the world for a harvest!

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from that silo, but recognizing God’s storehouse and understanding the purpose of the silo comes first! OK! I see a lot of ferret trails coming from this silo! Woohoo!!! Little moon walk, twist and shout!!!

FARMING GOD’S WAY (PART 2)

I love to read the stuff people put on the back of their cars, don’t you?   Without any formal introductions, you can learn a lot about the people behind the wheel… their personality traits, what they do for a living, what their hobbies are, what their political views are, their family make-up and even about their faith or lack thereof. The other day I pulled up behind a car that had a John Deere sticker on the top of the back window and at the bottom of the window, in smaller print, were these words… “I make dirt beautiful”. OMG! It took my breath away! Almost immediately a silly thought flashed across my mind… God would put that sticker on the back of His car, if He drove one! His business card would probably read something like this: “Garden of Eden Farms, International … Agricultural Expert and Consultant…. In the business of making Dirt Beautiful… Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you, 24/7”.   And there it was, an opening for my next ferret “farming” trip! Woop, woop!!! J

Where to begin? Hum! Let’s dive back into Genesis chapters 1 and 2, familiar trails where we found that God was actually the first farmer and that He planned for farming to be a family business.   We found that every living thing is made of dirt and science confirms that, because all life has the same chemical composition as dirt. God prepared the soil with life-infusing power, and from it, sprang all of His feed crops, grasses and herbs with life perpetuating seed in them and trees that bear fruit that contain life perpetuating seeds in them. Then He populated Eden with animals which included cows, sheep, horses and every exotic creature He imagined to live in the air, on land and in the sea. Then, He molded Adam, (designed to carry on the family Agri-business) out of the moist clay of the garden.   God was very specific in his job description: one who would guard the garden, subdue it, have dominion over it and he was to till the ground. The word, till, in Hebrew is aw bad’ which literally means, husbandman, or a farmer and everything a farmer does. So Adam was meant to carry on the business of “making dirt beautiful”, just like his own beautiful, perfect dirt that God had created and beautified with His divine essence!

Of course, we know that Adam corrupted his dirt when he fell. Sadly, because all dirt is connected, when Adam fell, the ground, itself, and everything made of that dirt fell as well. (Romans 8:18-23) Look at Genesis 3:17-19…”…because you have listened to the voice of your wife and you have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake (because of you). In sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring fourth to you and you shall eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return unto the ground, for out of it were you taken; for dust you are and unto dust shall you return.” Adam had just unbeautified his own dirt! How sad! Even more pitiful, he tried to make his corrupted body presentable by covering it in fig leaves, which was impossible. LOL! I can sort of identify. I have a calendar titled “If You Can’t Lose It, Decorate it” and I love that calendar because it gets real about our “dirt” and how to make it presentable regardless of how it has turned out. The thing I have learned is that an unattractive body is still unattractive even in a designer dress! UGH! Oh my! Sorry, I got us off on a funky little ferret trail! Back to the main tunnel…. So, Adam had ruined his own dirt and had no power to make it beautiful again…

But God…..!!!   I still love that phrase….(Eph. 1:4-7) God, who had an alternate plan from before the foundations of the earth, made a way to come to the earth in the form of a man (made of dirt). By his death and resurrection, He reversed the curse on all dirt! (Gal. 3:13, I Cor. 15:45-49) And we, who receive this gift, have a new seed in us, the reproducing seed of God! Check out I John 3:9 and I Peter 1:23 “…being born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the Word of God.” So, now, God is the husbandman, farming in us (from the inside – out).   He planted His good seed in us and He expects to bring in a harvest of good fruit from us, so that we, by our fruit, can resume farming in the world, solely by the power of God. It’s a little confusing but hang in there! Little chair boogie here!!!! Woohoo!

Okay!   We have gone from being farmers to being “farmed” by the ultimate farmer, God, with the aid and power of His Holy Spirit! The Word tells us that God is a “fruit” farmer! (Somehow that fits! LOLOL!) He chose to be our husbandman in grape vineyards and fruit orchards. (Fruit bearing trees are a type of humanity in scripture.  So we are trees!) In both, the vineyard and the fruit trees,  first, the seedlings are expected to be beautiful and eventually bear fruit. Second, the worth of the trees is judged by the quality of their fruit. If the fruit isn’t good, pity the tree! (Think of it… the fig tree full of leaves, but with no fruit, was cursed and didn’t get another chance,  unfruitful or poorly fruited branches are lopped off and thrown in the fire…. YUCK!) Third, the quality of the fruit is determined by where, and in what medium, the roots are planted. And, finally, in God’s vineyards and orchards, the plants are subject to the hand of the husbandman, God, Himself.

Ferret question… Why did God choose to refer to our beautiful lives as a type of trees and not as animals? I have a theory… in Genesis: 1:19-24, God described all animal life as having movement. Animal life is independent in that God’s creatures can move about, make decisions about where to go, what to eat and how to defend or protect themselves on a very basic level. Hebrew scholars say that animal life with “NePhesh” (a soul) have the freedom of independent movement. Trees, on the other hand depend totally on a husbandman (God or God’s environment) for their well-being, not being able to move or make determinations for themselves. I think of all those times I “planted” my kids, firmly, on a stool to clip hair, or brush hair, to clean teeth and even bandage a booboo, they couldn’t be still for even a minute! How many times has God said to us “Be still and know I am God”, and we couldn’t do it? God speaks of it in Matt. 6:28-29 “…Consider the lilies of the field, how they toil not, neither do they spin…if God, who clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you?…” So plants/trees, who can do nothing for themselves, and must rely, totally, on the creator to make them beautiful and to produce fruit in them! And He is faithful….

I don’t know about you, but I have heard innumerable sermons on our responsibility to love our neighbor as ourselves, to be kind and thoughtful, and  faithful, to ask for patience, and on and on. To tell you the truth, for many years I would listen with good intentions and actually believed that I could be that perfect person if I tried hard enough, only to fail miserably by Monday. It is sort of like trying to pin fig leaves on a muddy lump. Bottom line, I can’t make my soil beautiful by trying in my flesh to be like Jesus! The good news is that we don’t have to try to BE like Jesus… God planted His Spirit seed in us so we could produce, incorruptible “Jesus Fruit”! Now, that’s worth shoutin’ about!!!   Jump over to Galatians 5:22-25 and BOOM! there it is. “But the FRUIT of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance…”. Our branches can do nothing but abide in the vine or the tree, the fruit is produced by the power in the nutrients drawn up to the branches. (we do have a say in what we draw up into our branches, but that is another trip entirely!) The fruit hangs on our branches for others to harvest as a blessing. (trees don’t eat their own fruit)  When others are drawn to our fruit and feed on the fruit of God’s grace, produced in us by the husbandry of God, they ingest the seeds of that fruit and the dirt beautifying process begins in them. And suddenly, we are farming, God’s way! It’s the love of God, not man’s love, that leads men to repentance and a beautifying of their dirt. Amen!

God knows what we need to flourish, so we are planted deep in the Love of God (Eph. 3: 16-21), rooted and grounded. That means we are anchored in that love and that we draw up His love into our branches and the power of the Holy Spirit produces the fruit! How easy is that?   Jesus gives us an extraordinary picture of God, farming in our soil, making it beautiful. Go to John 15:1-12… If a branch isn’t bearing fruit, he lifts it up out of the dirt, cleans it off (by His Word) and puts it back on the trellis. (in verse 2-3 the phrase “takes away”   is the Greek word Airo which means lifts up) . Then, He prunes the useless foliage out of our lives. And He nourishes us by causing us to Abide in Him. In verse 4 Jesus says “Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you except you abide in me.” As we abide, God does everything and the fruit we produce is a response to His Love, not a responsibility demanded of us. In verse 8 we see that God gets the glory when we bear much fruit, like any good farmer who is known by the abundance and quality of his harvest. So, as we continue in His love, HE MAKES our soil beautiful and, in turn, by our fruit, we bring glory to the Father as we farm in others! Now that’s worth dancin’ about!   Woop! Woop!!!