Tag Archives: Christian

I See An Almond Branch

08 Friday May 2020

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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Image by Matthias Böckel from Pixabay

I thought I was weathering this quarantine fairly well.  Not that I haven’t struggled with worries and fears but I have sought to try and fill this time with positive things.  I have taken time to pray by myself and with others, I have increased the amount of studying I do, I have tested recipes, and I have focused on writing.  I have counted myself blessed to have a job that offers a few hours each week so, by focusing on essentials only, I have been able to face this time without panic and despair.

Until this week.  Everywhere I looked I saw images of angry, fearful, hate-filled people and every story I heard filled my ears with the same.  I was also dealing with a great deal of pain.  I don’t know what I did to aggravate my injuries but my pain has been intense.  It was physically difficult to get out of bed and it quickly became emotionally difficult as well.  I admit it.  I took my eyes off Jesus and saw only the terrible things being done everywhere in the entire earth.

The moment I did so, I was overwhelmed.  I saw how powerless I was to stop terrible things being done to people I know and love.  How much more powerless am I to help people I’ve never met?  I can’t even help myself.  I panicked and then I despaired.

I did what I knew how to do to fight.  I prayed, I read studies that uplifted and encouraged me, I tried to encourage others the best way I knew how even though I didn’t feel it myself, and I listened to teachings so my ears heard positive words rather than negative words.

My spiritual breakthrough came today.  I listened to Malcolm Smith’s webinar number 168 entitled “What Do You See?”.  Mr. Smith’s message is taken from the book of Jeremiah Chapter One verses 11 and 12.  The word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah and asks him, “what do you see?”  Jeremiah replies, “I see a branch or shoot of an almond tree.” (Quoted from the Amplified Bible)  Mr. Smith then goes on to describe why this particular vision is important.

I do not seek to copy his teaching nor am I remotely qualified to attempt to teach on this passage myself.  I will add a link to the teaching at the end of this post in case anyone is interested.  I do seek to put into words why this teaching was of such particular joy to me.

The almond tree blossoms in late winter/early spring.  It is the first plant to do so and, as such, is the promise of the life to come in spring.  It is the tiny bit of life seen while everything else still lies in the grasp of winter.  I do not think I push the analogy to say it is the bit of resistance in the plant world to the death that comes in winter.  It is tiny but it is real.

This struck me.  I cannot deny terrible things are happening nor do I wish to turn a blind eye to another’s pain.  I cannot feel compassion unless I know pain myself and recognize it in another and I do not seek my own peace at the cost of ignoring another’s suffering.  I want to be able to fight against evil with actions of love but it is difficult to prevent all of these terrible things from piling up, one on top of another, until they are innumerable voices screaming in my ears nothing but hopelessness and death.  I can do so little.  There are days when I am in so much pain I can do nothing at all.  These are the days of despair when I believe I am alone-and alone who can do any work for good?-and I forget there are almond branch stories.

There are stories of great sacrifice; people that have laid down their lives in order to take care of a fellow human being and people that risk doing so because the love in them won’t allow them to act otherwise.  There are stories of giving; people who give all they have and then more because the love in them cannot rest while a fellow being goes hungry.  There are the most precious stories of all where people do return the evil done to them with love.  There are big stories and there are small stories like the story a friend shared of a little girl in her neighborhood leaving a May basket on her door step.

These are stories of love that knows no barriers and no limitations.  These are stories of brave souls who hurl that love into the maelstrom of chaos raging around us believing in the hope that love is the far greater power.

It is such a fragile thing, hope.  Perhaps it is much like the almond blossoms who dare to flower in the midst of cold and frost.  These blossoms speak with a still small voice but that voice declares a promise of spring: abundant life to come.  I read these stories aloud to myself and listen to others tell them so that my ears hear words of hope and promise.  These words help me to find the strength I need to do something.

Because there is more to the picture of the almond branch.  In its expansion of Jeremiah 1:11 the Amplified Bible states the almond branch is the emblem of alertness and activity.  Alertness and Activity, Kate; not panic and despair.  I see an almond branch and it tells me I am not absolved of responsibility because I’m tired and in pain.  Perhaps I cannot do anything big but I can do something that tells an almond branch story of my own even if only one other person hears it.  I can do so knowing I am not alone.  In this time, it might be one almond branch flowering here and another there while the world lies under the weight of winter but each one is a promise that spring is coming.

Malcolm Smith’s Teaching: it’s just under an hour.

What Do You See?

Living Beyond Interpretation

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in Walking in the Way, Writing

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I attended a dinner party with some of my co-workers two weeks ago. One asked me about the book I was writing and I told her: it’s a series of seven fantasy novels using imagery drawn from The Bible. She asked me if I was religious and I said no. She then expressed surprise at the difficulty at the research involved with such an undertaking when I wasn’t religious. I tried to express that, while I have no religious label I can apply to my beliefs, I have a vibrant spiritual life.  But, it wasn’t something I could put into words and then the conversation shifted. The opportunity for explanations and clarifications was over.  That conversation got me thinking about our desire to understand our fellow human beings and how labels help or hinder that process.

In my opinion, labels hinder the process. I can say “I’m a Christian” but that word carries with it so many different belief systems and countless examples of mistreatment and hatred, old and new. Not that I wish to say that because some Christians have not positively represented Jesus’ character that all fail to do so nor do I wish to infer I am somehow ashamed to be labeled a Christian.  It is just that I understand that word means different things to different people and “Christian”, while accurate, doesn’t describe all I am and all I believe. “Christian” is broken down into different denominations like Methodist, Lutheran, Charismatic, Pentecostal, Catholic, etc: perhaps to negate confusion, perhaps to increase understanding.  I feel such labels have the opposite affect. I never belonged to a denomination whenever I attended a church building so none of those labels have ever applied to me. The dinner party made me ask myself; how do I describe what I believe when someone asks me?  I suppose I could use the term “Spiritual but not Religious”. What does that mean? What does it really say?

I suppose that, for lack of a better word, I did spend most of my life trying to discover which religious label would suit me.  Or lack of religious label in the case of the interdenominational and nondenominational services I attended.  It ought to have worked.  I was doing everything right, I thought. I was heavily involved in Church. I attended at least two services a week, I adopted the proper worship postures during the half hour or so devoted to worship before the sermon, I listened to the sermon attentively, took notes, studied, and served the church in whatever capacity I could. Why then was I so miserable? I constantly felt like I was falling short of the Glory of God, that there was some deep character flaw the kept me from living the successful Christian life like all those around me.

I’m simplifying, I know. I’m sure no one’s life was as perfect as it looked but I can’t deny Church seemed to work for them in a way it didn’t for me. I was desperate to stop feeling despondent and, in an attempt to drum up the joy I was supposed to be experiencing, I listened to as many teaching tapes I could get my hands on. Good old Joyce Meyer: I was listening to one of her teachings-so long ago I can’t remember which one-and she said something that caught my attention. She was describing everything I felt and then she said; “if God is telling you to leave your Church, listen.” Could that be it? Was it okay to leave my Church?

Everything I’d been taught said it wasn’t. If I didn’t belong to a Church I was forsaking the assembly, a big no no. No Church meant I didn’t tithe and was thus robbing God, another big no no. Maybe I could leave my current Church but find another one. I was sure that was what God was telling me. I began attending another Church and met wonderful people whom I liked and enjoyed being around, attended home bible studies where I did learn a few new things, and started auditioning for the choir. In less then three months the uncomfortable, depressed feeling returned. I hung on for a year and then one day couldn’t take it anymore. I walked out of the Church (as a building) and never returned.

It is not a popular decision. Some wonderful, loving Christians I’ve spoken with since then have been genuinely concerned for my spiritual well-being. I can see ‘backslider’ flash through their eyes and then they invite me to their Church. I appreciate the concern because I know it comes from a place of love but it also comes from a place of fear. I know because leaving a formal Church terrified me. What if I was backsliding? My life was not mistake free and full of struggles.  Didn’t that prove leaving Church was the first and biggest mistake? What if I was one of those falling away in the latter days? So what, I asked myself. Anything is better than constantly feeling beat down and miserable. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? I prayed a prayer. It went like this.

Father, I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing but I need something new. I put my life in your hands and trust that, no matter what, you have a hold of me. Whatever happens to me from this moment on is your concern.

I have trusted Him to keep me ever since and He has never failed to do so.  I have not been joined to the Church as a building but have a beautiful awareness of being a member of the Ecclesia.  There have been moments of magnificent fellowship with my fellow called-out ones and moments of tremendous isolation where I feel alone in the wilderness with no one but Jesus.  How then do I define myself?  Is there a label that defines me as following the Lamb wherever he goes? (Revelation 14:4b) I suppose my answer would be Relationship not Religion.

What makes me so sure my co-worker was interested anyway?

More than likely, she was not.  However, it’s never a bad thing to take a look at my life and ask myself questions.  And, it’s never a bad thing to ask myself if, in an attempt to understand my fellow human beings, do I seek to do so with labels.  I hope not. I hope I look at others and see that they are all unique and that I can have no true understanding of them as long as I continue to label them. I must give them the freedom to live beyond such interpretation as I demand that right for myself.

End note: I borrowed the title of this post from “Lay My Love” by Brian Eno and John Cale

For anyone interested on two excellent studies on “Forsaking the Assembly”:

Forsake Not The Assembly-J Preston Eby

Forsake Not The Assembling-Elwin Roach