God is like that council. He can see the bigger picture and He makes plans for the long run (not just the short-term).
About thirty years ago when my family and I moved into our family home in the Hills Area in the Northwest of Sydney, the area was a very new area and many of the homes were under construction and the streets were – in some places – just dirt roads and unsealed streets.
One of the – now major – streets near my family home, was an unsealed dirt road, which had only a few constructed homes on it at the time. Some months (and years) after we moved into our home, the local council began works on one particular street to seal the road and finish the street. Part of that work involved creating a median strip in the middle of the street. This median strip was a very large and significant part of the street’s design. It was laid out with turf, native shrubs and flowers were planted and a very very long row of native trees were planted in the centre of the median strip of that street.
During the year in which these plants were laid down on that median strip there was a prolonged and significant drought.
And so, as I caught the bus each day to work, I would observe those small trees and that turf and all those shrubs and flowers wilting under the sun and the heat, and I would think to myself – what a terrible waste of council money to design a median strip like that…
The other day, I happened to drive down that same road and I saw the median strip. Now – some thirty years later – the turf is green and luscious, the shrubs and flowers are blossoming and the trees stand taller than telegraph poles, like welcoming soldiers down the centre of the street. In other words – despite some challenges during their early years – that garden in the median strip of that street now looks magnificent!
And I was reflecting on that today as I was reflecting on my Beloved. You see, my Beloved is like that council. He can see the bigger picture and He makes plans for the long run (not just the short-term). And just as the trees and plants looked like they might die in the heat and the drought when they were first planted, sometimes it seems that I have too many challenges in my life to be able to cope. And just as those plants on that street blossomed and thrived and look so magnificent now after all these years, so too does my soul blossom under the torment of suffering.
And when I think about that today, I have to stop and give thanks. For my Beloved gives my suffering – He allows it – because He knows that I can cope with it and that it will be good for me. And I have come to realise that the next time I am worried that it is all too much for me, I will think about that street and the median strip of on, and I shall remember the trees. For the trees survived the drought and are so strong and healthy and beautiful now, that when I really come to think about it, I know that I have nothing to fear…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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