The Year of The Lord's Favor - August 2011

The Year of the Lord's Favor

61:1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor; 
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

My morning commute travels down a picturesque landscape of the Deep South.  Most days, I try to capture a mental snapshot of the sun sliding upwards over the floating docks of the Ashley River estuaries.  The warmth of morning light glistens through rippling water reeds and the smooth strokes of a wading, snowy heron calm my morning jitters.  A glance further up the highway flickers a picket fence pasture full of life; geese gathering speed as they ascend into a soaring V, red cows munching breakfast while small egret weave in and around foraging for insect prey disturbed by the thud of hooves.  These are the moments I must catalog into my soul album; precious glimpses of God’s intention for his world; harmony and holiness.

Above all others, the snapshot I treasure most extends overhead in a canopy of mossy oaks sent to console my aching heart.  The beauty of these trees is a deep-down in your bones stirring comfort; the trunks tout strength, the curving limbs careen grace, and the branches drape a refuge in my soul.  It’s hard for me to fathom that these trees could be any less magnificent than at this very moment, yet these strong oaks were susceptible to the destruction of Hurricane Hugo in the ‘80s.  The hurricane left much devastation and despair in its wake, including my mighty oaks. What are you telling me Lord?  My first thought is I own no sense of nostalgic connection with what these trees used to be, but then I pause.  I can relate.  I ache with a wistful desire to erase the devastation of the past year.  After which, I am left painfully aware of my powerlessness in the midst of circumstance.  The Spirit connects to me through nature.  These grand oaks allow me to revel in nostalgia for the girl I lost.   Yet, lived through the lives of oak trees, I unearth a renewed hope in the available promises of beauty and restoration after disaster.

My thoughts gather momentum as I contemplate the oak to self.  I discovered the life and quality of an oak is greatly influenced by pruning.  The tallest and most arching trees are often the ones pruned at a young age. Most oaks develop mechanical growth problems caused by self-inflicted wounding usually due to neglect, which can become a haven for insects or a potential disease infection.  Self-inflicted wounding sounds too familiar.  My heart is diseased, but I long to be a magnificent oak.  The reality is I have failed to turn to my Healer for pruning. In the absence of pruning shears my senses deadened and thus, disease could flourish; a sickness resulting in heart wilt and devastating darkness.   Pruning for my heart was way past due.  Christ was sent for this very reason; to open my eyes, to mend my broken heart, and to release me from sin’s bondage. The great healer is going to work pruning my wounds:  self-inflicted and neglect ridden.   

It’s a matter of survival for a live oak to have optimal irrigation and I have an eerily similar parched thirst.  Recently, I’ve gulped from Christ’s cup of divine justice for he has already satisfied the debt for my sin. The weathered, mature oaks tower over my tree stump and whisper comfort that God will restore the scorched places within me.  The oaks encourage, insist I take swallows of undeserved grace, and that I rest as incessant mercy hydrates my drought filled heart.  My heart is crowded with disease like an oak’s decaying branches and must be trimmed immediately or else death is certain.   My broken heart meets God’s forgiveness in the midst of despair and hopelessness.  Everyday his Spirit lobs off branches of my evil desires and vices.  Removing an oak’s dead branches helps the tree’s overall health by pushing the growth to upper branches, which provides better growth structure to the highest canopy.  And there I am again, mirrored in an oak.  He is removing my dead, self-centered branches, helping to push my growth to the upper branches of humility.  His strength begins to circulate hope through my limbs as he reminds me that he has conquered Satan, destroyed the disease manufacturer, and has provided me with grace sufficient to shear off sin-infected branches. 

Resistance to wind is often the reason many oak limbs break. Isn’t that how I’ve been broken?  I’ve resisted God’s call and blindly searched for healing in all the wrong places.   Perhaps, the oak’s greatest pruning need is to thin the large, heavy tufts of growth that form on the ends of the branches. If these are left to grow, the limbs often break during storms because of the great weight that causes them to sway back and forth.  Did I foolishly think I had this God thing down as tufts of self-righteousness weighed me down?  I determined I could rule my own kingdom and God was welcome to join me if he wanted. The weight of my foolishness pulls on my heart.  The knowledge that my desire for control led to an envy of God’s omniscience and caused me to fearfully sway from my Shepherd’s path is why I was eventually left, lost and broken.  However, hope rises because the magnificent oaks of saints past and present still stand to display a promised beauty instead of a forever darkness clothed in ashes of mourning. 

Captured in the everyday are pictures of how God is at work in the events of history to work out his purpose.  Christ calls us out of darkness to turn our sorrows into joy when we turn from sin and to him, “ But ‘we’ are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for ‘us’—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted” (1 Peter 2:9-10 The Message).  Our spirits of heaviness will be blown away and winds of praise and thanksgiving will freely flow through us and to others by his grace.  Our brokenness over sin is met with his promise to patiently eradicate the decay that so easily infects life. We will be planted and pruned so that he may be glorified through breathtaking branches of devotion. He will shear off sin’s bondage, comfort in sorrow, and cure wounds. He will extend our canopy as a refuge for others who are hurting, so that one day we will be called oaks of righteousness—a keepsake photograph for the soul.