Tag: bible

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The Vine (with a twist)

“I am the Vine….you are the branches.
Abide in Me…and you will live.”

John 15:5

This morning, checking my little flower garden beside my back porch, I discovered, much to my delight and surprise, that my favorite flowering vine had sent out a new little tendril, which had somehow reached, through mid-air, to a tall shepherd’s hook about a yard away from the blossoming vine. There was nothing but air between the vine and the shepherd’s hook to which it had now begun to wind itself.

I was delighted . . . yet surprised and puzzled. I know, from the growing bouquet of bright red, large blossoms, that the shepherd’s hook will soon extend that original beautiful “bouquet” further into the garden far beyond what I could have hoped.

I couldn’t help but think of the Words of Jesus, as He taught His dear followers, using a word picture they were seeing as they walked with Him in the countryside.

My dear, Good Shepherd Whispered to my heart the Words He had spoken to His closest followers as they walked along with Him.

I don’t know how that Vine reached across the space and onto that shepherd’s hook. I did not see it happen. But carried by nothing tangible, it had reached beyond where it was planted and blooming, and was now beginning to bring beauty to a plain old, rusty-black shepherd’s staff among the stones.

That’s what Jesus does with us . . . for us. Apart from Him…the Vine….we’re sure to become a shriveled, droopy, dying blossom. We’ll hit the ground eventually, and again become part of the earth.

But the blossoms still connected to the Vine continue to bring color and life and beauty to a landscape of rocks and dirt. A vine moves…extends…and nobody sees it happen. It simply does. And its blossoms will come, open,and bring beauty to a spot that had nothing but stones and a plain, rusty pole.

I am sure that I will soon see that Shepherd’s Hook “blooming” soon.

Our Good…GOOD Shepherd does that as He leads us to places beyond where we were planted. And through our lives that are wrapped around Him, beauty…color…fragrance…
will extend to the rocky places that had no beauty nor life before. It often happens in unexpected ways, and not by human orchestration. That’s part of what makes it so special.

No person can take credit for the new color and fragrance that has entered a plain, rocky place. He simpy chooses to share His surprises in unexpected places where He has brought new life and all ofits beauty.

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A Gift for Moses


Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land I promised with an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I said I would give it to their descendants.
I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you may not go there.”
As the LORD had predicted, the LORD’s servant Moses died in Moab. He was buried in
a valley in Moab, near Beth Peor. Even today no one knows where his grave is.
Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eyesight never became poor,
and he never lost his physical strength.”
Deuteronomy 34:4-7

As I read this passage. . . .the final glimpse of the life of Moses . . . I am struck with the
tenderness of God toward His servant Moses. Perhaps “death” does not seem to be a tender part of the human story, but the way God Himself cared for Moses in his final days of life is permeated with His Love, Tenderness, and Understanding of Moses’ unique Story with Him.

God Himself led Moses to a mountaintop, where he could see the Land he had spent 40 years reaching. Forty years of physically and spiritually leading a nation that God had chosen for His Own eternal Purposes had brought Moses to this Moment. It may not have been the Moment he had imagined, with “the rest of the Story” literally within sight. He had probably had his own hopes and vision of what life would be in that Land of God’s choosing. He may have imagined himself standing on that Promised Land, seeing it . . . walking it . . . living in it with the nation God had chosen him to lead.

But God, in His tender Mercy, led Moses to the “best view” that his tired eyes could take into his mind, spirit, and heart. He was looking at the “Promise” God had ordained. He was looking at it in the Presence of God Himself. What words may have been exchanged as he and God, together, looked. Did God point out regions where His People would live . . .places that would become part of their story. . . where Jerusalem would sit for thousands of years to come. . .within sight of the humble village where Messiah would be born. . .

God was rewarding and blessing Moses in that precious Time together. One-on-one. . .
bringing a sweet, tender closure to a man born a slave, raised as a Prince in the house of
Pharoah, and leading God’s People to the place He had ordained and promised from The
Beginning.

At last, God gave him rest . . . in His Presence.