Together in the wilderness

Some of my best memories of college days were the times my friends and I camped together in the West Virginia wilderness. Places with names like Otter Creek and Dolly Sods were magical. Sharing those experiences with friends formed joyful memories that I'll cherish for life.

Sometimes we're led into a wilderness that looks very different. It's a dark, scary, terrible place. But even there, deep friendships are formed. Jesus is there; he never leaves us or forsakes us. And most often, others are there too. It's because we're there together that we can count even these times 'pure joy'.

Life’s lawn

There's a house on my running route that recently burned. Once the investigations are complete, I'm sure it will be torn down and rebuilt. But what caught my eye today was the lawn. It hasn't been mowed since the fire. And the weed growth is impressive (I'm sure the neighbors would choose a different word).

What we call 'weeds' are really just native plants. It's the grass that's foreign. But we tend to think the grass belongs and wonder where all the weeds come from.

Life is like a lawn. Left untended, worldly things just shoot up. We don't have to wonder where they come from. They're native. And the surrounding environment suits them perfectly. By contrast, Kingdom things are imported. They require attention, care, hard work.

Lawn Care Tip: Landscapers tell us the best way to control weeds is to maintain healthy grass.

The generalist-specialist

There's a saying:

A specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing. A generalist is someone who knows less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything.

But God knows everything about everything. Nothing is hidden from him. Nothing in the universe. Nothing in the atom. Every detail of every detail, he knows its composition, its function, and its relationship to every other thing. In fact he actively sustains and interacts with all things all the time.