You ought to have seen what I saw on my way
To the village, through Mortenson's pasture today:
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!
And all ripe together, not some of them green
And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!
Thus begins Robert Frost's poem Blueberries. My wife Jane often quotes those first seven lines from memory- especially when we're picking fresh strawberries under the warm July Michigan sun.
If you've never picked fresh Michigan blueberries you have no idea what blueberries are all about. The tiny, shriveled caper-like excuses for blueberries found in a polyethelene bag in the frozen food section of your grocery store are NOT fresh blueberries! No, a fresh blueberry, as Frost observed, is as big as your thumb and heavy.
It's kind of like that with the process of hearing from the Lord. Reading a great Christian book or hearing a well-prepared sermon may satisfy our hunger a bit- but it will never taste like the real thing, fresh from the bush. When the Lord speaks to us directly we realize how much is lost in the process of commercial picking, freezing and thawing.
So how can you pick fresh blueberries?
Through prayer, through meditation, through worship, through fasting. It's during those times that the Lord so often drops a fresh insight into our personal pail- as big as your thumb; fresh and ripe. When we savor the sweetness of fresh fruit we realize that second-hand blueberries, given to someone else and then served up later will never be quite the same.
Why not spend a little personal time with the Lord this week and see what He has to say to you.
Mmmmmm.... fresh blueberries! Frozen berries just aren't the same. At least that's how Boompa sees it.
1 comment:
I have had the pleasure of picking huge, fresh, ripe blueberries under the warm Michigan sun. So, your word picture is loud and clear, and I thank you for it. :)
As I read your post, another thought struck me: In the same way that participating in God's Word is better when done on a personal level, so, too, is participating with other believers. Not just the sort of relationship that gets qualified as "acquaintance," but someone you can truly call "friend." As I am slowly coming out of a time of being away from connection in a church body and truly interacting with others on something deeper than the surface level, I am also beginning to rediscover the "iron sharpens iron" effect once again. It's those moments of reading His Word together and in discussing it hearing God clearly say to my heart, "THAT is what I wanted you to see/hear/know!"
I've been settling for frozen/dried fruit, because it was less painful than the labor of gathering what is fresh and alive. I am thankful for a God who is patient and loving enough to lead me back to what is "more abundantly" His. And, thankful for folks like you and Jane who remind me of His love in such a graceful way...
Post a Comment