Reaching for the light

Everyday there is a cycle of light and darkness. Each morning the sun rises and brings new light to the earth.

The leaves, once dark and ominous, are now bright and green.  The stumps and trunks of trees once filled the night as fearful strangers. Now at mid-morning they are friends along the trail.

Without the sun there is no light and no color. When the sun returns, the water, the earth, moss and trees all reflect who they are. Colors of blues and turquoise shine up at me. Colors of green around the trail cry out to me. Overhead and all around the trees reach higher for the sun’s light.

All their structure: the roots, trunk, limbs and leaves reach for one goal. Get me closer to the sun.  Below them death, decay and excrement are carried by the rain to their root systems.  Every fiber of which is ready to absorb, transform and build the next leaf, limb or needle.  Roots, ready to build the next inch of limb or foot of trunk reaching for the sun.

I am like this. I am reaching for the Son.  In His light all the beauty He created in me is reflected in color, love and the creativity He has gifted to me.  And within me there is decay and excrement and as His word washes over me, it carries bits of my weakness away.

Then like the tree, the same water, minerals and enzymes fertilize my growth.  My roots grow deeper to extract every drop of moisture mixed with sin, manure, grief, sorrow and His Word.  Each new glimmer of understanding is carried by the Spirit to transform my life, strengthen my roots and expand my reach for the Son.

Refreshing rain covers all my leaves but the water that transforms dung into fertilizer is far more valuable on the ground.  When the Word is as rain, I am refreshed by its touch.  When it soaks into the foundation of my life I feed for days, weeks and months on its transforming power.