Weak Trees
I have a theory about the interaction between Christian leadership and weakness. I'll spare you the clever "connect the dots" literary exercise and just tell you what it is up front so you can decide if you want to read on. My theory is that leaders tend to be weakest after they expend energy in a successful leadership campaign. After they bear fruit as leaders, they are the most susceptible to falling into sin of some kind. Therefore what we do with our "down-time" is of critical importance.
I've learned over the past several years and from several mentors of mine to take spiritual cues from nature. I'm not certain if this completely passes muster 100% of the time, but more often than not I've found that the physical realm informs the spiritual. The spiritual realm and physical realm run in parallel lines by design because God wants to be known, and he wants us to know ourselves. So the physical world is a training ground and if we pay attention, hidden within our physical experiences are clues to spiritual truths. Pretty cool. The Bible offers us definitive guidance and provides the best and most clear description of spiritual things, but the Spirit working within us is also maneuvering us through life on earth, weaving spiritual lessons into our earthly experiences. I marvel at this, and yet I shouldn't be surprised. God created physical and spiritual to be intertwined. Its only because of my Western mindset that I try divorce the two.
One example of this. In the physical realm you reap and sow in appropriate seasons. I'm not being metaphorical here. I grew up on a farm where we planted seeds in the ground one season, waited patiently, through another season, and reaped a harvest in the next season. Then the ground rested for the fourth season, and the cycle repeated itself. In the spiritual realm I find this to be true as well. Sowing seeds in the spirit means spending time in the word, in prayer, in community with other Christians, in sacrificial giving of our time and resources. These seeds bear their fruit in the appropriate season and the harvest is a life filled with love, joy, peace, patience, in the season that follows. The early church even developed the Advent Calendar as a reflection of the sowing-growing-reaping-resting cycle that we go through spiritually.
Our bodies need the proper food to function. I have lots of options at my disposal, but only a particular kind of food will help my body be healthy. Junk food, fast food and heavily processed foods all "look" like good food but the fact is that if I eat these my bodily health starts to suffer. My spirit is no different. If I subsist on a diet nightly news casts filled with bad news and desperate situations then I WILL eventually develop a desperate attitude. If I surround myself with friends who complain and critique and pass judgments on everyone, then I find that a my spirit becomes more critical and judgmental. And so it goes... physical informs/influences spiritual and vice versa.
I could continue on with the numerous similarities and parallelisms I have found between the physical realm and the spiritual realm, like the healing process & how bones and skin mend themselves over time with scars and extra tissue, our immune system and how it identifies harmful things within our bodies and attacks them, the way physical light pierces darkness, and etc. But I'll assume you're convinced enough to consider my theory and evaluate it for yourself.
If it is true that these parallels between physical and spiritual do exist then there are some things I need to start paying close attention to.
A woman is vulnerable after she gives birth. A tree is weakest after it bears its fruit. After harvest the ground rests and is given time for nutrients to be replenished.
These are all big red flags that my physical world is waving at me. Its telling me to be intentional about periods of rest after times of spiritual exertion. And its a warning to be intentional. What happens in my times rest will be a good predictor of future harvests.
I've learned over the past several years and from several mentors of mine to take spiritual cues from nature. I'm not certain if this completely passes muster 100% of the time, but more often than not I've found that the physical realm informs the spiritual. The spiritual realm and physical realm run in parallel lines by design because God wants to be known, and he wants us to know ourselves. So the physical world is a training ground and if we pay attention, hidden within our physical experiences are clues to spiritual truths. Pretty cool. The Bible offers us definitive guidance and provides the best and most clear description of spiritual things, but the Spirit working within us is also maneuvering us through life on earth, weaving spiritual lessons into our earthly experiences. I marvel at this, and yet I shouldn't be surprised. God created physical and spiritual to be intertwined. Its only because of my Western mindset that I try divorce the two.
One example of this. In the physical realm you reap and sow in appropriate seasons. I'm not being metaphorical here. I grew up on a farm where we planted seeds in the ground one season, waited patiently, through another season, and reaped a harvest in the next season. Then the ground rested for the fourth season, and the cycle repeated itself. In the spiritual realm I find this to be true as well. Sowing seeds in the spirit means spending time in the word, in prayer, in community with other Christians, in sacrificial giving of our time and resources. These seeds bear their fruit in the appropriate season and the harvest is a life filled with love, joy, peace, patience, in the season that follows. The early church even developed the Advent Calendar as a reflection of the sowing-growing-reaping-resting cycle that we go through spiritually.
Our bodies need the proper food to function. I have lots of options at my disposal, but only a particular kind of food will help my body be healthy. Junk food, fast food and heavily processed foods all "look" like good food but the fact is that if I eat these my bodily health starts to suffer. My spirit is no different. If I subsist on a diet nightly news casts filled with bad news and desperate situations then I WILL eventually develop a desperate attitude. If I surround myself with friends who complain and critique and pass judgments on everyone, then I find that a my spirit becomes more critical and judgmental. And so it goes... physical informs/influences spiritual and vice versa.
I could continue on with the numerous similarities and parallelisms I have found between the physical realm and the spiritual realm, like the healing process & how bones and skin mend themselves over time with scars and extra tissue, our immune system and how it identifies harmful things within our bodies and attacks them, the way physical light pierces darkness, and etc. But I'll assume you're convinced enough to consider my theory and evaluate it for yourself.
If it is true that these parallels between physical and spiritual do exist then there are some things I need to start paying close attention to.
A woman is vulnerable after she gives birth. A tree is weakest after it bears its fruit. After harvest the ground rests and is given time for nutrients to be replenished.
These are all big red flags that my physical world is waving at me. Its telling me to be intentional about periods of rest after times of spiritual exertion. And its a warning to be intentional. What happens in my times rest will be a good predictor of future harvests.
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