“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Christ is loving us back to life. Breathing His breath back into us to bring new birth and creation into being.
Creatives need space to create with no restrictions or limitations.
A cleared space, like a blank canvas, allows the birthing of new. Un-compromised, obstacle free, purpose fit, beautiful. Such as God’s creation in the beginning. Nehemiah‘s building of the temple and walls after they had already been destroyed.
Seldom is it as easy as that when the start is where something else is already in existence. From that place there are so many complications.
The overgrown garden that has a charm but which has to be torn up and stumps ground down and mutilated to a place of stark to re design and plant. To be waited on with patience to reestablish to a glory of its own.
Too much is in the way to be able to see clearly.
Too much has been precious in the past and sentimentality creeps into the judgement of its current worth. There is a security and comfort in the existing, well known that we linger over.
There are decisions on what would be scrapped or what retained to reconstruct. Our basic nature also comes into the contest.
Those of us who cannot throw out and get rid of.
Those who cast out regardless.
Those with a new vision. Those with no vision.
Those with maturity if we consider we will never see or reap from the upheaval and change and therefore the value of insight and experience is not passed on generationally. Those with youth, energy and pioneering spirit who come up against criticism and too much caution.
Still on the garden theme Capability Brown designed the gardens of many stately homes and now these roll seamlessly into the landscape but in their birth required the imagination of what a sapling would become in 50+ years time!
Equally we see where the vision and creative imagination of a sculptor can salvage a tree from being completely cut down and removed and instead with a skilled use of a chain saw give birth to a monumental sculpture and art form to arrest the attention of many for generations to come .
Boldness, vision, creativity, provocation can all be part of a solution for what is to come. Change that has value. Solutions to what the future needs to redeem what has played its part and now needs refreshing.
Caleb as a youngster was aware of constant battle in the 40 year circulating in the wilderness following Moses. He was still battling giants when he accessed the promised land but he had throughout the hope and vision of what the future held.
God is in control and He knows the future has been won. We aligned with that knowledge and vision can break down and build up and know that we or the future generation will reap more. We are all part of the team.
We want what Jesus wants in this hour. We cannot go back to where we were before. Even if we can’t see what is ahead. Or if what we perceive looks messy it has its place if that is where Jesus is taking us.
“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Now is a time for listening and obeying as a gap is bridged. Like Joshua, take down obstacles and keep communication and relationship as priority. Renovation, reconstruction, removal and reinstating. Stripped back and rebirth.
“But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Currently we have waited for almost two years and have misgivings about returning to a place where we are frustrated. God is still taking back and moving and preparing. There will be a ‘sudden’ and the fog will lift and the visibility be restored and the vision beheld.
“And as it was commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be confirmed for you from the time that you know that Heaven rules.”
The truth is God has never left us. Our seeking will restore our seeing, knowing and revive our power when we know that heaven rules. This was Daniels interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream about him being the tree to be cut down to a stump for relying on himself and not God.
The illustration shows Jesus as the seed head in time with the breath of life blown into the solution that suddenly becomes revealed out of the fog that obscures it. The radiant light pushing back the darkness.
Four Scriptures that come to mind:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”Proverbs 13:12 ESV
“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”Ephesians 3:17-19 ESV
“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.””Joshua 24:14-15 ESV
“And as it was commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be confirmed for you from the time that you know that Heaven rules.”Daniel 4:26 ESV
The song Endless Praise. Charity Gayle
https://youtu.be/xjQfe6OwH64
Lessisgreater 