The Pines were Whispering........

One summer, my school system "strongly suggested" that I (along with several colleagues) enroll in a SCIENCE INSTITUTE workshop that was being offered in my area.  It was a two-week course, which seems like an eternity for a teacher who is off for a much-needed summer break.  By the time the course ended, however, I was REALLY GLAD that I had been able to participate, for I carried away with me literally tons of new ideas and information.

One thing that I learned - quite accidentally (in other words, not a part of the course) was that there are several varieties of pine trees in our area.  Now I knew that varying species existed (at least in name), because I'd heard those names tossed around by people who are associated with the enterprise of "knowing their trees."  The part that was foreign to me, however, was that there are so many varying physical attributes among the list of species - like needle length, pine cone size, and bark thickness and texture.  Let me get more specific by jumping into the heart of this recollection.

This guy (in my summer class) brought to one of the gatherings a branch from a long-leaf pine.  It was a sizeable branch - what we science folk would label "a superior specimen."  I couldn't believe my eyes.  The needles (or leaves) on this branch were ENORMOUS - even COLASSAL, if you will.  It was nothing like I had ever seen before.  The few pine trees that I had been around and noticed over the course of my lifetime had needles that were a good 2/3 shorter in length.  There were no pine trees in my yard as I was growing up, only carefully placed trees and shrubs and two HUGE oak trees (that literally came with the place - the house was built under their protective shade).  I'd seen pine trees in the various parks around town, but who pays attention to such things?  After all, a pine tree is a pine tree is a pine tree.  Not so, friends.

Everyone assembled (literally EVERYONE) laughed hysterically at me, astonished that I was being completely serious and that such a detail had escaped me as a "born and raised, card-toting child of Southwest Georgia."  They declared that there were longleaf pines ALL AROUND ME.  One lady even said to me, "There are literally hundreds of longleaf pines on plantation property that span both sides of the highway that leads into Thomasville via Highway 84, East."  And then it hit me.  Number one: How do you really notice something that you're whizzing by in your car at almost 60 miles/hour?  Number two: How do you really notice something for which you have the least amount of care?  The rich diversity of pine trees is lost to the casual observer who is on the "bullet train" through life (always speeding towards something of "greater" importance).  To all the tree-huggers of the world, this has got to be a "crying shame."

But such a remembrance forces my mind to attend to an aspect of my daily life that is far more important than tree varieties.  Hold a spiritual mirror to the observation above and you will find a clear reflection of something that is oh-so burdensome to the heart of God.  We typically fly through our lives with such GREAT speed and LITTLE care that we are hardly cognizant of the fact that all around us lies a plethora of circumstances that perplexes the minds of our fellow man and tears away at the heart of our Creator God.  We are acutely aware of other how people talk to us and treat us, or of how we perceive things.  Even in the church - a place set aside for the absolute and pure worship of our Heavenly King - we notice such minute details as:
- what the preacher is wearing
- how much the choir director sweats
- how we "got" nothing from the service
- how some visitor (like visitor is a four-letter word) took OUR pew
- how the carpet in the sanctuary needs to be replaced - it's so 80s
- how the organ was too loud
- how the temperature was all wrong
- how the church allows sinners to come into the congregation
- how the deacons and ushers allowed that "homeless looking" man to enter our presence
............and literally, the list goes on and on and on and on.  But you see, all these observations are being made while literally MILLIONS in this world are dying and GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL!!!!!!!  And yes, as a Christian, I am astonished that such magnanimous and glaring details escape the sight of all professing "born and raised, card-toting children of THE ALMIGHTY GOD!"

If Christians, then, value the souls of their fellow-men MORE than themselves and their personal interests, if they look upon salvation as a matter of eternal moment, considerations of humanity (independently of any regard to the glory of God) would urge them to labor and toil and pray and strive for the success of the Gospel.  It is the only hope of a sinking world; it is in the hands of Christians, and they are required to proclaim its glad tidings of hope and pardon and mercy to every creature.  Shall they not strive, then, with earnest, unanimous, steady, persevering efforts for the recovery of their race?  Is there a man or woman (our Southwest Georgia good boy) who professes to have the spirit of the Savior that would wish to be exempt from a work like this?  Is there one who would excuse himself from the delightful task of hastening on the latter-day glory of the Church?  This is an age of great enterprises.  NONE are too humble or too poor to labor for the Savior.  All have some influence, all have some work assigned them, and it is the duty of all to be just in that part of the field which the Redeemer has allotted to them.  May we all be found of Him in well doing -- faithful, laborious and devoted servants, such as the Lord will delight to honor!

Let us, therefore, try in our daily strivings to slow down (for the bullet train is not the only way to travel) and let our eyes and ears literally perceive the cries of the lost and dying.

Throw out the life line across the dark wave;
There is a brother whom someone should save;
Somebody’s brother! O who then will dare
To throw out the life line, his peril to share?

Throw out the life line with hand quick and strong:
Why do you tarry, why linger so long?
See! he is sinking; oh, hasten today
And out with the life boat! away, then away!

Throw out the life line to danger fraught men,
Sinking in anguish where you’ve never been;
Winds of temptation and billows of woe
Will soon hurl them out where the dark waters flow.

Soon will the season of rescue be o’er,
Soon will they drift to eternity’s shore;
Haste, then, my brother, no time for delay,
But throw out the life line and save them today.

This is the life line, oh, tempest tossed men;
Baffled by waves of temptation and sin;
Wild winds of passion, your strength cannot brave,
But Jesus is mighty, and Jesus can save.

Jesus is able! To you who are driv’n,
Farther and farther from God and from Heav’n;
Helpless and hopeless, o’erwhelmed by the wave;
We throw out the life line, ’tis “Jesus can save.”

This is the life line, oh, grasp it today!
See, you are recklessly drifting away;
Voices in warning, shout over the wave,
O grasp the strong life line, for Jesus can save.

Throw out the life line! Throw out the life line!
Someone is drifting away;
Throw out the life line! Throw out the life line!
Someone is sinking today.

Selah (סֶלָה )

And to think, He did that just for me............

When I was a young boy, my family and I would often drive to a wooded section of Grady County, to the very spot my Dad had called home in his formative years.  At that time, my Uncle Enos and Aunt Kathleen were living in the "old home place" and raising their family.  Those are happy times in my memory - to this very day.  My Aunt Kathleen could prepare the MOST DELICIOUS fried chicken on the planet (she still does) and my Uncle Enos was a genius when it came to preparing butter and syrup, in which he would sop one of my aunt's home-cooked biscuits (after supper, as a fitting dessert to down-home eating).  This fond journey, however, into culinary heaven is a digression to my original purpose for writing.  I'll just privately savor those wonderful meals for a few more moments and then, get back on track.

Now, where were we?  That's right, we were discussing Friday night trips to my kinfolks' home in Cairo.  It seems as if our leaving their home was always done rather late in the evening.  When we'd finally call it a night and start our trip towards home, the brightness of the moon (nestled in a blanket of stars) would literally bathe every surface with its pure luminescence - as can only be enjoyed when gazing into a "country sky."  And make no mistake, Moon Over Manhattan or Moon Over Miami ain't got NOTHIN' over Moon Over Centennial.  If you've never seen the night sky from country central, you've never really SEEN the night sky.  Concentrated civilization (city life) produces maximum light pollution (porch lights, street lamps, car lights, etc.) which hinders one's ability to view the night sky as God created it.

Well, at any rate, in those long-ago nights the moon played front and center in my upward gaze.  I'd track its "movements" carefully as my Dad would start the car up the lane that led to the main road.  I was always amazed that the moon had a sense of the direction and speed our car was traveling and would follow us (quite well) all the way back to Thomasville.  My parents would tell us that the Moon did in fact follow us, and wanted nothing more than to shine over our house, and shed its light for our pleasure.  I just knew, as a child, that people from everywhere and all walks of life must have had a real ax to grind with the Butlers for hogging the splendor of the Moon.  Well, it did shine on our neighbor's houses too - once we got back into town.  Surely the neighbors were grateful that we had the mindset to share our moon.

In the movie It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey tells Mary Hatch - with whom he is caught in the splendid moonlight - that he would like to lasso the moon and offer it to her as a gift.  He speaks those lines with the authority (or audacity) that the Moon is his to give.  But, in fairness to George, that movie was filmed and produced LONG before the Butlers assumed ownership of the Moon.  I just mention that fact so as to divide Hollywood fantasy from reality.

You might think that I've lived long enough - at this point - to have somehow outgrown that mentality.  But you'd be entirely wrong, for I've had other experiences involving "the heavens and the Earth" that have incited or goaded such perceptions.  After all, is it really that outlandish to think that our MIGHTY and MAGNIFICENT GOD would create and produce such absolute and regal splendor for an audience of one?  I don't think so, and let me tell you why.

I've driven my car to work EARLY in the morning, almost unable to stay on course, because of the magnificence of the morning sky.  So often, I will get out of my car on such mornings and just stand there with my eyes thrust heavenward and my mouth ajar with disbelief.  And when the constraints of time bring me back into the realization that I have to sign in by 7:40, I close up my car and head towards the front door.  It's then that I notice other people scurrying towards the school entrance.  The most striking difference I see in myself and my counterparts (more times than not) is that they haven't even looked upward (in their hurry) to see the very thing over which I have just marveled.  NO KIDDING - they haven't noticed AT ALL!  So, in that case, I am compelled to believe that God has created that moment and that panoramic splendor for an audience of one.......ME!

And that's the same way in which He offers the gift of His salvation.  He doesn't wave his hand over an entire nation of people and declare YOU ARE MINE.  It's more intimate than that.  He doesn't wave His hand over an entire church body and declare YOU ARE MINE.  It's more intimate still.  He doesn't wave His hand over a family of believers and declare YOU ARE MINE.  You're almost there, but think about even deeper intamacy.  He does, in fact, wave His hand over the wayward drifting life of ONE soul, and declare YOU ARE MINE, FOR YOU HAVE BELIEVED IN YOUR HEART THAT JESUS DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS AND THAT HIS BLOOD - POURING DOWNWARD TO THE FOOT OF THE CROSS - HAS CLEANSED YOUR LIFE AND GIVEN YOU A HOPE ETERNAL!!!!!  And yes, my friends, that comes about, in all its glory, for an audience of one.  And just like you have to claim the wonder of the moon or morning light, you have to (in that audience of one) claim the entrance of Christ into your heart through an invitation of belief.  Jesus says, "Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20).  And for a Southern boy, that shared meal just might be fried chicken and home-cooked biscuits sopped in butter and syrup.

So, you see believer, God's only begotten Son, is ours for the claiming.  Who am I that God should be mindful of me?  He's my Father, my Abba, my Eternal King.  I am His, and He is mine!

Loved with everlasting love, led by grace that love to know;
Gracious Spirit from above, Thou hast taught me it is so!
O this full and perfect peace! O this transport all divine!
In a love which cannot cease, I am His, and He is mine.
In a love which cannot cease, I am His, and He is mine.

Heav’n above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green!
Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen;
Birds with gladder songs o’erflow, flowers with deeper beauties shine,
Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.
Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.

Things that once were wild alarms cannot now disturb my rest;
Closed in everlasting arms, pillowed on the loving breast.
O to lie forever here, doubt and care and self resign,
While He whispers in my ear, I am His, and He is mine.
While He whispers in my ear, I am His, and He is mine.

His forever, only His; Who the Lord and me shall part?
Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the loving heart!
Heav’n and earth may fade and flee, firstborn light in gloom decline;
But while God and I shall be, I am His, and He is mine.
But while God and I shall be, I am His, and He is mine.

Hey EVERYBODY, go out and enjoy my moon!


Selah (סֶלָה )

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