I was heading home from work this week, going on the overpass to connect with even more people on the freeway. ( I always like to look at plants that find their way to grow in impossible circumstances.) I saw the usual weeds, grass & ivy growing, and then I saw IT! A cedar TREE, four feet tall, seemingly to flourish between a cement wall and the jersey barrier right smack against the wall! No space that anyone would really pay attention to between them... but the tree is paying close attention to it, you might say. There it is, forty feet above more concrete & asphalt, hanging out (literally), just growing along.
This cedar tree reminded me of Kurt and I - in between two very solid continents, cultures and also in between two very solid ideals. Do we retire & grow old here or do we act like the twenty-year-olds we still feel like & follow Jesus' command to GO into all the earth & preach the gospel to everyone? Well, we like fun & the challenges of life, and through MUCH experience, we would rather do life God's way than in our own wisdom.
I was also thinking of many people I know of or have heard of who may also be in growing in the impossible places. Maybe their past has rooted them to hang on by their fingernails. God comes into their lives and places a jersey barrier to help hold them up & keep their roots moist. Maybe they were flung into this world (in their eyes) haphazardly & life keeps giving them water, grit, dust, dirt, coffee grounds.... all that help to provide soil in a very unlikely spot - put it has nourished them so far! Look how tall and resilient they are! If some of us grew in that environment we wouldn't have made it past the first winter.
What's your story of the cedar? How will you radiate your life?
God has quite a sense of humor - we tend to notice it because we like to laugh so much - He had Moses strike a rock... in the desert.... for water! He cleared a path in the sea for the Israelites to flee Egypt.... not a loose band of eight, but over two million people! He found each of us in our sins and called us to come away & follow the sinless one who took our sin upon Himself so that we might have life!
... and He has called two older people to get rid of all they have collected, raise full support in a challenging economy to move to the last place they expected to live in order to preach the Gospel to those who have lived through communism as their "god" & have no idea who Jesus is! Even their welcome, "Isten Hozot" literally means, "God has brought you", yet they have no idea of why God would care about them....
How will you radiate your life to others?
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