Enduring the Training!

   There are furry little masked animals in the woods behind my house. These animals are rarely seen during the daytime. I didn’t even know that they inhabited the woods behind my house until I set up a game camera that detects motion and take pictures in the dark. After retrieving the pictures from the camera a couple of times, I was surprised to see several raccoons eating the corn that I put out for the deer. I was even more surprised to see the deer and raccoons eating at the same time! The raccoons are smart animals. When the corn on the ground was all gone they would climb up a tree and lean over and touch the deer feeder mechanism to get it to drop a few more kernels of corn on the ground (see picture below). After discovering how my deer feeder was going empty so quickly, I moved the feeder to a more open area, away from any trees.

   Raccoons typically weigh from 15 to 20 pounds. They are most well known for their habit of washing their food before eating it. Scientists still disagree on why they do this. Raccoons eat a variety of foods including: fish, insects, worms, plants, fruits, and nuts. They are nocturnal, eating mostly at night, and rarely venture out during daylight hours.

   I was out in the woods early one morning, just after daylight, and saw a mother raccoon with a very young raccoon stumbling along trying to keep up with her. I’m sure that they were just ending a long night of hunting and foraging for food, and were really tired and ready to go to sleep. It may have even been the youngster’s first time to go out foraging with its mom! The mom then must have decided that it was time for a climbing lesson. The mom scampered up a slender tree and gave out some grunting sounds; evidently telling its youngster to follow her. The young raccoon was giving out some twittering, bird like, sounds, probably telling its mother that it was ready for bed and didn’t want to go through a climbing lesson. It took a couple of minutes for the young raccoon to laboriously climb up to where it mother was, only to see its mom scamper over to another tree. The youngster wouldn’t move for a few minutes, but finally heeded its mom’s calls and again followed her path, at times slipping and almost falling several times before catching up with her. After ten minutes of this activity they finally ended up high in an oak tree where they curled up together on a limb and went to sleep.

   As I was walking through the woods this morning, I passed by the area where I observed the raccoon climbing lesson. I started thinking about the lesson. The mother could have taken a very easy ground path and then climbed straight up the oak tree to their sleeping place, however she chose to take a very difficult and challenging path for the young raccoon. She was persistent, and patient, in getting her young one through the challenging path, knowing that the training it was receiving was beneficial. In our spiritual life we often go through situations that are uncomfortable and sometimes painful, but Paul tells us in Hebrews 12 that: “you must submit to and endure correction for discipline, God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not train and correct and discipline… for the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful, but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it”.

So the next time God takes you through one of life’s difficult training exercises, just remember, keep following God and you will end up resting securely in his arms!

Note: Scripture reference is from the Amplified Bible

Landmarks

    I received a lot of lessons from my dad while hunting in the great outdoors. When I was younger we didn't have all the modern GPS navigation aids. More than once, while in the outdoors, I found myself walking in circles and ending up where I started. This behavior causes quite a disturbing feeling. Dad taught me to navigate by using existing landmarks, pointing out various unique trees and terrain along the trail. Seeing one of these landmarks was a reassuring feeing when I was uncertain if I was still going the right direction. One particular area we hunted in was a very large and heavily wooded area, with no fences and few unique landmarks. Fortunately, this area was close to a road with an old wooden bridge. Cars traveling over this bridge made a distinctive noise. My dad taught me this simple lesson for navigating back home when lost in this area: "Just stop and wait until you hear a car going over the old wooden bridge, then turn until the bridge is on your left and walk straight forward." I sometimes had to wait a while for the next car to cross over the bridge, but the technique worked every time!

    To successfully navigate through our complex spiritual existence, we need to set up or identify some “landmarks” in our lives. Seeing these familiar landmarks assures us that we are still on the correct spiritual path. The Bible points out many of these “landmarks” that we should have established in our lives, such as daily prayer, fasting, witnessing, and regular reading of the Word. Losing sight of one of these “landmarks” helps us realize that we are straying off our spiritual path and need to take action to get back on track. One personal “landmark” that I set in my life at an early age was regarding church attendance. If I started questioning in my mind whether or not I should go to church, that was an immediate sign to me that I was backsliding and needed some immediate attention to get back on track.

    If we don’t have enough of the spiritual landmarks in our lives, we can get lost and not know what path to take to get back on track. Even when we have the landmarks, we can still stray off the path and get lost. It is usually frightening and disturbing when we come to the realization that we have a problem in our life, and we have no idea what to do to fix the problem. When this happens while driving a car, we usually stop the car, get out and ask someone where we are and how to get to our destination. When this happens on the spiritual side, we need to pause and go to someone for direction, or go directly to God for help. In Matthew 17:16 the disciples could not heal a certain man. They then came to Jesus and asked why, and Jesus told them that some challenges take much prayer and fasting to see success. Make sure you setup and follow the landmarks in your life, to keep you on the correct path!

Working Together in the Forest

   There is unbelievable array of more than 350,000 different types of living plants in our world today. They include trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, and come in shapes and sizes that are hard to imagine. A dozen flowers from the wolffia plant would just fit on the head of a pin! This small wolffia plant is 7 trillion time lighter than the massive sequoia tree!

The tallest known redwood tree reaches the height of a 37 story building at 379 feet! Bamboo is the fastest growing plant on Earth having been clocked at 48” (four foot) of growth in a 24 hour period! In areas of poor soil there are plants that derive most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming insects.

The strangler fig tree starts to grow in the crevices of other trees, grow their roots downward, and then strangle their host tree as they grow up toward the sunlight! I never cease to be amazed when I consider God’s amazing creation!

  I was walking in the woods today and saw a strange tree that I could not identify. The leaves did not seem to match the tree structure. As I got closer I realized that it was an old dead cedar tree that was covered with a grape vine and its large leaves. Later I started thinking about how the different plants in the forest work together to protect and support one another. The grape vine I saw was not strong enough to support its own weigh and depended on the large tree to provide support.

   In my walk today I also passed by an area where several tall trees had fallen, leaving a big opening in the middle of a heavily wooded area. In these heavily wooded areas the trees grow very tall trying to reach the sunlight. Some of these tall trees are very week and only stand because they are supported by the closeness of the other tall trees. When one of the tall trees dies and falls, it tends to cause several of the surround trees to fall also.

   Just as God designed the plants of the forest to work together and support each other so has he crafted the “body of Christ” to support all of its members. Just as there is a great diversity in the plant life, so are there also all types of people that make up the body of Christ. The Bible talks about the “body of Christ” in I Corinthians 12: (New Living Translation)

       12 The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So
       it is with the body of Christ….22 In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest
      and least important are actually the most necessary. 23 And the parts we regard as
      less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect
      those parts that should not be seen, 24 while the more honorable parts do not require
      this special care… 27 All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part
      of it.

   We need to realize that there are all types of people in the “body of Christ” and learn to accept those in the body who have different ministries than our own. We need to identify where we fit in the “body of Christ” and provide support for the rest of the body. When we all work together as one body there is great harmony in the forest of our lives!

Grooming the Trails

    Several miles of trails meander through the woods behind my house. I like to keep the trails clean so I can creep along them quietly and observe the wildlife. Dead branches and leaves are continually falling. I have appointed my self as keeper of the trails. I spend time raking the trails and trimming back the ever-growing braches and vines. Keeping the trails clean is a continual process, year 'round. The spring and summer require continual trimming of the new growth to keep it from taking over the trail. The fall and winter require removal of dead tree limbs and branches, after every cold front. Sometimes I spend several hours raking the trails, only to see them covered again the next day by wind-blown leaves. The occasional thunderstorm can fell complete trees and sometimes requires rerouting the trails. During one recent winter ice storm (yes, we do have the occasional ice storm in Texas!) I kept hearing what sounded like gun shots in the woods. I later realized that it was large trees and tree limbs that were cracking and breaking under the heavy weight of the ice. After the several-days-long ice storm, the woods resembled a war zone with dozens of fallen trees and limbs. It took several hours of work to get the trails back to normal!

    I have noticed that within several months, the woods can completely take over a trail. Just today I took an old trail that I had not used in three or four months. I was surprised to see that the trail was almost indistinguishable from the surrounding woods. Leaves and branches almost totally covered the trail and grass and weeds were starting to grow along the trail.

   Guarding and keeping our soul is very similar to the effort it takes to keep the trails clean and groomed. Our souls require regular and constant attention. If we do not regularly cleanse our souls, sin has a way of quickly appearing and taking up residence. Sometimes sin crashes down on us like a tree falling during a sudden, violent thunderstorm, doing its damage quickly. These big sins are obvious and leave no doubt that we need take action to get rid of them. Other times, sin slowly creeps in like the tiny weeds that appear in the trail. At first these sins are small and almost unnoticeable. We may see issues in our lives that appear so small and insignificant. Given time, even these seemingly insignificant issues can grow to be major thorns in our lives, if we do not address them. Sometimes we only cut back the "weeds" in our lives and soon they grow right back as they were. When we see these little weeds in our lives, we need to quickly pull them up, roots and all. In life sometimes we just address the symptoms of a problem, but what we really need to do is get to the “root” of the problem and eliminate it. Make sure you keep you soul clean and groomed and you will enjoy many happy days in your life!