A Branch??

Dear friends, my sincere apologies for falling behind in posts this week.  Please check back later today for additional posts as I catch up.  Thank you for your understanding!

Click here to read Isaiah 11

This chapter reminds me why I find Isaiah so compelling and why his vision captures my heart.  After several chapters where I find my shoulders slouching and starting to wonder, "Why bother?"  Isaiah reminds me why I bother.  I bother because the God we worship and who moves in our lives takes a stump and causes new growth.  Most of the time when we see a stump, a tree that has been cut off, we see only death and destruction.  To be honest, it is difficult to see a small shoot of green life giving much hope.  After all, that growth coming out of the stump in the picture above would only need a quick snip of the pruning sheers.  Whereas to cut down the tree took time and energy and more than likely a chain saw.  Often times a little growth does not really impress us that much.

Think of it this way: in one day five friends give you bad news about their health or jobs or family life.  Then another friend tells you she is going back to school to be a minister.  At the end of the day, would you feel more hopeful because of the one friend or feeling like everything around you is going to hell in a hand-basket?  Honestly, I would not feel great.  Sure I am happy for my friend, but somehow the scale of life would still feel like it is tilting toward the negative. This reality is exacerbated by the 24 hour news cycle that lives on a steady diet of bad news.  Some of the lead stories trending right now include Lance Armstrong admitting to cheating, who won at the Golden Globes, President Obama's attempts to enact gun control laws, and a coach yelling at his players.  Do I see a stump in that or a small growth?

Please know I am not trying to bum you out here...maybe you are thinking I should have taken a few more days off from posting!  What I am trying to suggest is a parallel, a connection, between our lives today and the people of Israel.  Here is Isaiah in the first ten chapters basically telling everyone destruction is coming and looming.  You can hear the chainsaw in the background.  When along comes Isaiah 11 (like Isaiah 2 and 9), there is this echo of hope, the slightest green shoot of new life springing forth from that stump.

I need Isaiah to remind me this morning that God does not always move with Hark! the herald angels singing.  God moves more subtly and I can miss that sacred stirring.  I need to remember as I go throughout my day today that there are moments when life springs forth and when life lays as quiet as the frozen ground covered with a thin layer of snow outside my window.  Even beneath that snow, I know that there are tulips waiting to spring forth.  While I may not see that small green shoot in my garden today, I may see it in my conversations, interactions, and experiences today.  If I can, then that will be a trace of God's grace.

Blessings and peace!