Fruit

I love our small country town and I love the small corner store we have, but one of the hazards of living in rural Manitoba in the dead of winter is that the produce department takes a serious hit. During the winter months, we have to content ourselves with either over- or under-ripe bananas, apples that have seen better days and exorbitantly priced grapes who are preparing for their lives as raisins. The mandarin oranges that cheered the Christmas holidays are long gone. That's how it is every year.

But every once in awhile, we drive an extra 45 minutes down the road to Brandon, a city that boasts a Superstore, which is where my son and I found ourselves last week on the coldest day of the season. And there was row upon row of glorious, vibrantly colored fresh produce. Not only were there yellow bananas, crisp apples in abundant varieties, and firm, juicy grapes but there were mandarin oranges for sale, apricots and grapefruit, pomegranates and nectarines! There were exotic fruits and vegetables from all over the world – things we never see in our country town: dragon fruit, eggplants, starfruit and things I couldn't identify!

I have been learning in the past several weeks about waiting. Waiting for God.

I sometimes feel like my life is like shopping in the produce department of a small country corner store in the middle of winter. But I am learning to wait a little longer, go a little farther down the road, where I anticipate encountering the abundance of God, where I might be met with wonderful things I can't even imagine.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

and in his word I put my hope.

I wait for the Lord

more than the watchmen wait for the morning,

more than the watchmen wait for the morning.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord,

for with the Lord is unfailing love

and with him is full redemption.

Psalm 130:5 - 7

Show Me the Money!

Last day of school before Christmas break. Concert is wrapped up, class party's been had, time to go home and kick back at the end of a long year. One stop to get gas and I'd be “free” for two weeks.

I stop at the gas station three miles from my school and half an hour from home to fuel up. Since I'm an intelligent and independent woman, I proceed to fill up my own gas tank. As I stand there beside my car in the icy wind, an equally icy thought strikes me – I had taken my wallet out of my purse the night before to do some online shopping... I may not have followed through on my plan to return it to my purse this morning. I quickly jump back in my car, dumping the contents of my purse on the seat beside me, rifling through old receipts and tissues, notebooks and hairbrushes – but no wallet. I jump back out and stop the pump. Now what?

I head inside to tell the attendant about my predicament. What to do? She is very kind and understanding and brings me to the manager. While I wait for him to get off the phone, I contemplate different ways I could pay. There is no way I want to drive all the way home for my wallet and come back to pay – that would be a whole hour of my Christmas break wasted on a foolish memory lapse. Maybe I could remember my credit card number? Maybe I could call my husband to run home and phone me back with my credit card number, or he could give me his?

I manage to remember of my credit card number but I am uncertain about the last four digits. A different attendant tries my number but it is rejected. I call Jeff to get him to run home to get my wallet and tell me what my credit card number is. I move my car out of the way by the pumps, then come in and drum my fingers on the table, waiting for him to call. Turns out I had remembered my number correctly, so why hadn't it worked? I try to keep panic at bay. Oh hey, guess what! Maybe they would be okay with my leaving to go into town to get money from our credit union branch? The first attendant suggests we try my credit card number one more time and then if that doesn't work I can go get some cash. To my great relief, it works! By this time, I have spent half an hour in the gas station and I still only have $17 of gas in my tank. Regardless, I jump back in my car and head home, even more grateful and eager to get going on my holidays.

As soon as I get home, I return my wallet to its rightful place in my purse where I notice the envelope of cash my car-pooling colleague had given me that very morning nestled comfortably among the the receipts and tissues and hairbrushes. I could have just paid cash and gotten out of there in three minutes!

All that unnecessary drama! What a royal waste of time!

So, is there any redeeming value to this story?

I've been thinking a lot about this incident over the past few weeks. Perhaps this experience is a little picture of how I tend to live my life. I come across a new challenge, an unexpected difficulty, and I start to get a little panicky because I feel like I have insufficient resources to tackle the situation. I need to solve the problem and I'm afraid I don't have the where-with-all, but ought to. Meanwhile, I have within my grasp all the vast resources of a great and loving God. With a scarcity mentality, I end up wasting valuable time mired in unnecessary stress, scrambling about, relying my own measly solutions and miss the provisions at my disposal. Instead, I need to calm down, pay attention, and shift my focus away from myself and my weakness and towards my all-powerful God who owns the wealth of the universe. He has never failed me yet, so why am I so quick to get flustered and yet so slow to trust?

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:13

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think,

according to the power that works in us,

to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations,

forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3: 20 - 21

Wisdom in the Streets

“Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise,

making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

Therefore do not be foolish

but understand what the Lord's will is.”

~ Ephesians 5:15 – 17

This seems like a pretty good passage to start off the new year – we all know we're going to be another year older; it would be nice to be another year wiser, as some sort of compensation! And you can't be wiser just by deciding to be – there's some work involved: either you become wiser through experience (not always, but often, painful) or by studying others' experiences. As I tell my kids (or think towards my kids), you don't have to make every mistake yourself; you can learn from others' mistakes as well.

In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is often personified as a woman. We meet her in chapter one, calling aloud, raising her voice, shouting out in the open, in the public square, on noisy street corners, at the city gate, urging passersby to listen and heed her warnings. And then, when the passersby ignore her and disregard her voice, Wisdom laughs at their calamity and mocks them when disaster and distress overwhelm them. Seems kind of harsh. But Wisdom says at the end of the chapter, “For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm” (vs. 32 – 33).

So really, the responsibility for being wise lies with us – Wisdom has done her job, calling out, waving her arms, warning, advising. Our job is to heed her call and live by it.

Why is it, then, that we struggle to figure out which is the wise path to take? Why can't we discern whether the voice we hear on the street corner is Wisdom warning us away from danger or simply a crazy person waving their arms in the midst of a noisy crowd?

I think perhaps our ability to discern is tied to what we're looking for – are we looking for wisdom or are we looking for approval from others? That's my quandary; others will have different struggles. If you think you're the only one with good ideas, you may see Wisdom as a crazy person and miss the message. Or start arguing with her. If you're just trying to keep your head down and blend in with the crowd, you may not even notice Wisdom shouting on the street corner. Or try to avoid being associated with that oddball. If you're too busy in the rat race of life, traffic may force you past Wisdom without slowing down to understand what she's saying.

The beginning of chapter two says that if we are listening for wisdom, calling out for her as loudly as she is calling to us, looking for her as for a treasure, then we will “understand the fear of the LORD [which is the beginning of wisdom Prov. 9:10] and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom...” (Prov. 2:5 – 6a).

So slow down, pay attention, be on the lookout for Wisdom. You'll see her; it's up to you to recognize her and listen.