"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions."
-Leonardo da Vinci
It is mid August, but already it smells like autumn; like dying leaves and bruised apples beginning to rot. Even for Calgary, this is premature. Premature because the air isn’t crisp and the nights are not yet cold, but still there is the scent of what is to come. The aromas of autumn are present because of what we’ve suffered, not because the time has come to change seasons. For two days last week violent thunderstorms moved over the city and what the first hailstorm didn’t kill, the second finished off. The raspberry canes, once flushed with crimson orbs and leafy with green now typify their name with barren stalks. The climbing scarlet runner beans were beaten into a sad, battered tangle. Even the apples that managed to stay on the trees are bruised and beginning to attract the wasps. It isn’t just the fruit--the harvest--that is destroyed. All the flowers not sheltered under the eaves of the house are nothing but naked stems, shorn of leaves and blooms by the violence of the storms. Even the things that are meant for beauty are broken.
It’s depressing.
I remember looking at my life a couple of years ago and feeling just like this. Every dream planted, every hope sown was mown down, battered and broken. There would be no harvest. All that remained was a wasteland and a monumental clean up job that I couldn’t bear to contemplate. Hail was the analogy I identified with the most. A pelting from the heavens that I couldn’t avoid. I related heavily and bitterly to Joel 1:4.
“What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left, other locusts have eaten.”
There is nothing to be done about a crop that is destroyed. Within minutes the time and work of a whole season is devastated. Anything with life in it takes time to grow, but destruction is the work of an instant. Time is the one resource we always feel impoverished by. Once passed, it is gone forever. But when everything is devastated and the hail storm or the locust swarm passes by, there is nothing to be done but clean up the dead pieces and wait for the next planting season. You have to wait to try again.
And, you almost can’t bear to try again because it seems that having no hope of harvest is preferable to the crushing disappointment of a harvest stolen. And I felt so mad at God about the whole thing because if anyone could have stopped my allegorical hail, it was Him. He is the last line of defense and He let the side down--or, so I begrudgingly thought.
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten--the great locusts and the young locusts, the other locusts and the locust swarm-- my great army that I sent among you.” Joel 2:25
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Joel. Hold up a second, here. God sent the locust swarm? It was His great army? So, it wasn’t just a case of Him letting the side down because He was busy saving trapped miners or something catastrophic; He actually intentionally destroyed everything I was working toward? What kind of ally is that? Why would He do that? Weren’t the things I was working toward in line with what He wants? I certainly thought they were, but what becomes more and more abundantly clear all the time is that I don’t really understand God at all.
“There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.”
(Proverbs 14:12 NLT)
“There is a way that appears to be right, but in the ends it leads to death.”
(Proverbs 16:25 NIV)
Seems. Appears. These are the words of deception; of slight of hand. It was so true that Solomon wrote this same statement twice two chapters apart. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten he’d already written this proverb down; repetition in the Bible usually means the author intended to add emphasis. The thing is, usually when I read that kind of verse, I think of it as applying to other people; not me, because I really am trying to do what God puts in front of me to do. Aren’t those kind of verses about people who don’t care at all about what God wants? The people who aren’t--you know--reading the Bible? Maybe. But it would be a little odd for God to fill the Scriptures that His people are to follow with instructions and cautions for the people who will never read it. I guess that means it applies to me. There was a way that seemed right, but wasn’t.
But sometimes I think we get so far into the planting season that we don’t want to know if there is a problem. We want to justify ourselves and all our time and effort because it is expensive and heartbreaking to have been so wrong.
It is God’s mercy and love that reveals the deception; even if He uses a hail storm or locusts because it might just be that He knows that if we could salvage any shred of the deception we would rather do that than turn the rudder of our lives against the current. We would rather not believe that we’ve been deceived for so long.
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten--the great locusts and the young locusts, the other locusts and the locust swarm-- my great army that I sent among you.”
There is promise in the face of disaster. God is faithful and even though He destroyed the harvest, He promises abundance. He promises the restoration of lost time. Lost effort. Even though I was the one that was deceived, He--in His goodness and mercy-- more than makes up for the loss. It is the kindness of God who sends a pelting from heaven to save your life.
Preach it, sister! Your boldness and vulnerability are both convicting and encouraging, in that I can relate to the bittersweetness of my own refinement processes and "hailstorms" and seemingly-ruined crops which I've grieved, only to recognize the deception I've held onto. It is almost too much for my small brain to comprehend how God's goodness is sometimes expressed through not just allowing but actually sending the "locust armies" to painfully strip away the foolishness I've held onto. It makes me think of high-risk medical procedures like an induced coma, where one wrong move or delay would mean death, but bringing the patient pretty darn near to it in order to perform life-saving surgery is what will save them.
ReplyDeleteAs you so accurately once told me, the only way to be humble is to be humbled, but being humbled is always - well, we know what it is. I've lately reflected on tears I've shed over recent "hailstorms" and what had seemed like the decimation of crops I'd been working so hard to cultivate. Exactly as you're saying - weren't these all good things, and in line with what God wanted? Clearly I was holding onto some deceptions, and your words bring conviction on that point. But in getting some glimpses of some treasures that have come out of those refining fires - sometimes just the faintest hints of greater things yet to come - I've been struck by how often God has been using hailstorms in my life to accomplish things in other people's lives. The reminder that I'm just a small part of His much, much bigger plan - that my field and my crops are only a speck in the much bigger tapestry of fields surrounding mine - is sobering, but also encouraging. Sobering because it's NOT just all about me (one of the easiest deceptions to pick up, I think). Encouraging in that the ashes from these burnt crops might fertilize not only new crops in our lives, but actually a much bigger field, for a much bigger harvest. Thankfully there's the merciful promise that "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy." (Psalm 126:5).
On a completely different note... I just got the parentals signed up to receive your posts via email, and had the chance to enlighten them about what an "em dash" is, as that proved a point of confusion.
ReplyDelete"I've never understood the title of this blog", said one cute lady, followed by, "what IS an em dash anyway? And why would it be gratuitous? I like dashes - I use them all the time! What's wrong with that - Emily Dickinson did - why can't I?" We had a little talk about clauses, semi-colons, parentheses, proper em-dashes and lazy writing, as well as the clever pun on blog posts written by Morgan being an "M dash". Less fun when you have to explain it. But it reminded me of how much I've learned from your amazing editorial/supervisory work! ;)
Shoot. I've just realized that gratuitous and incorrect em-dashery is hereditary... oops. ;)
ReplyDelete