A red-headed
House Finch (I think) constructed a nest on top of my outside patio lights. I
assume he is trying to attract a mate as he is regularly perched on the deck
railing singing his little heart out while keeping a watchful eye on the nest.
Early Saturday morning the neighborhood quiet was shattered when my new
neighbors got into a 20-minute backyard shouting match attacking one another
with four-letter words. The heated argument took place only 15 feet away from
the finch, but he wasn’t frightened away, or distracted…he stayed focused and
continued singing his song. I wish I could block out worldly turmoil as effortlessly
as did the finch. Paul said, “For our light and momentary troubles are
achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So
we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:17-18 NIV).
1 comment:
Gail;
-----When my foot hit the pavement at forty miles per hour, there must have been a lot of pressure on it. Either that, or it drug down the road pretty far, because a half-dollar sized hole was worn through my boot and all of the skin on the ball of my big toe went gone. In its place was that stuff called road-rash. And my chest was badly sprained, being my second point of contact with the raging road. So Chari fixed me a nice tub of hot, Epsom-salt water that evening, into which I lowered myself ever so gingerly.
-----There was no way I could bend far enough to care for the hole in my foot. I rested it on the counter by the tub and said to Chari, “Sweetie, you’re going to need to use one of those little brushes and scrub the road-rash out of that hole, because I can’t reach it.”
-----”Oh! No! I can’t do that!” she rejected.
-----”Why not?”
-----”Because it will hurt too much.”
-----”Oh, no, no. It won’t hurt,” I assured her while thinking how nice it would be if that self-suggestion thing were real.
-----”Why don’t you think it will hurt?” she asked more insisting it would than seeking assurance that I knew what I was talking about.
-----”Because washing it will feel good.”
-----”What makes you think that?” Her curiosity was now genuine.
-----”Because it needs to be cleaned, hon. It will feel good because it will be getting clean.” I was even beginning to believe it myself.
-----”Well, ok,” she resigned to what she knew all along she was in the end going to do. And she didn’t waste any time. She lathered up the little scrub brush and set it to the task with neither warning nor mercy.
-----Maybe the timing worked right or something. As soon as that brush hit the tar covered meat in the bottom of that hole I go, “Yah! That feels good!”
-----”You’re just saying that!” she contended.
-----I had rolled my head to the left by reflex at the sensation of that brush churning against my Tar-B-Qued meat and had a nice lungful of air drawn in which I slowly released, rolling my head back to the right, “Ohhhh! That feels soooo goooood!!”
-----I think she got it then. I know I did. Because that scrubbing was feeling really good. Rolling my head back left, still overwhelmed by the surprising pleasure of the sensation, I moaned out again, “That reallllyy does feel goood!!!!”
-----”It does?” she now said acceptingly.
-----So she scrubbed. And she scrubbed. And finally she tells me she can’t get any more tar off the B-Que, and she gently put it under the faucet for a good rinsing. And that, brothers and sisters, is when it started hurting.
-----But the whole experience taught me something; fortunately, it taught me very quickly. It was only natural that it was going to hurt, so I decided it wasn’t going to hurt badly. And it didn’t.
-----Now, how cool is that?! We are sandwiches on the seashore (Gen 22:17.) One slice of our bread is this fleshly body interacting with the material world around us. The other slice of our bread is this spirit thing now made alive in jesus’ Holy Spirit. Our minds and emotions are the meatloaf between those two slices of bread. Do we really have the ability to choose from which slice our minds will perceive sensation? I assure you, brothers and sisters, by experience: yes.
-----Like your little finch can tune in the truth of his situation and sing through the chaos of a neighborly hell, we have a situation going on inside us more glorious than all the stars and galaxies of the universe, right inside for our tuning in to! We need to put our minds to it when our only option is to put up with the mess around us, and we need to sing its comfort and joy throughout our minds, if not even out loud, until our meatloaf turns to pastrami, lettuce, tomatoes, and Miracle Whip (Rom 8:10-11; Col 3:2-3.)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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