Heart Soul Mind Strength

patiently completing His perfect work

September has come again. The hot, humid summer’s days are numbered. The garden, a battleground, pits plant defenses against hornworms, blight, and erratic weather. Zucchini season is complete. The season of cherry tomatoes is closing. Eggplants, cantaloupes, watermelons, and cucumbers are under close daily surveillance for readiness. Autumn seeds are sprouting and getting hardened off for transplantation.

Tending the garden in August has been a chore due to the weather, pest pressure, and the diseases of elderly plants. It involves more sweating and trying out mitigations for the issues. The thrills of initial planting turn into a determination to yield food. Study is required to identify garden friend from foe. The cute little green frogs are a joyous helper I look forward to seeing each day.

I do not hate the hornworms and other pests. I have observed that they struggle and strive like everything else. It seems there is a specialist bug designed to depend on each type of plant.

My Lord God, the Creator, has demonstrated patience to preside over my life and continue to do what is needed to bring forth fruit in His kingdom and for His glory. He began this work by disturbing the dead dust of my heart and poured in every essential element to transform my life.

The Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 talks about the Seed, the gospel of the kingdom of God in the world, being scattered literally everywhere. Jesus did not tell us, in this parable, to even worry about whether the ground was ready. This agrees with the Great Commission that Jesus gave us. Matthew 28:19 and Mark 16:15 say to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature and teach everything Jesus taught them. Scatter the gospel seed. Using the parable’s analogy, some of the seeds we sow in our lifetime will be snatched up by the birds, burned out by the sun, or crowded out by weeds. Does this mean that they will be wasted? Will the Word of God ever be sent out and come to nothing? According to Isaiah 55:11 “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth: It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

When I decided to put my trust in Jesus as a young child, under the blessing of my believing parents, Jesus gave me everything necessary for life and godliness within that “seed” of the Word of God planted in me (2 Peter 1:3). Initially, I believed because my parents believed. They told me of God’s faithfulness to them. They taught me that God calls us to live His way instead of society’s way, following what Jesus taught His disciples. My parents framed my understanding of the world according to the Word of God.

When I was just four years old my older siblings were all set to go off to school each day. Momma was going to have a baby a few weeks after my fourth birthday. As Momma prepared me for the coming of a baby brother, I looked forward to my important role as a big sister. I would be Momma’s special helper with the coming baby brother. I was confused when that baby never came home from the hospital. Too early in my life, I learned what stillborn meant. We were all in mourning. That entire year, 1987, was a particularly difficult year for the Hill family. We reflected back to 1987 as a watershed moment in the development of the particular relationship between God and us. Those experiences further lead us away from the previous way of thinking to a new way God was showing our family to live.

We lived in Odessa, Texas that year. Since I was so young, I was not aware of the reasons for things like us moving to a different place or the church bringing us food and giving us practical love. We experienced the sweetness of God’s love in the middle of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I remember the list of events without being certain of their order. Dad lost employment at some point. We had a large family vehicle that got repossessed because we couldn’t make payments on it. Dad got very, very ill for a while. Our coming baby brother James William Samuel Hill died before he was born. Coming out of that year, we must have all experienced some trauma; although, sweet memories of the church fellowship we belonged to also lingered.

My parents took to heart the lessons God was training them in, and on my birthday the next year Dad started his longest, most stable period of working in one place. The lesson Dad was learning then, with much difficulty, was the lesson I am currently in. To be content and faithful where God has me now. Dad had gone through the rigors of dental school for the purpose of being a dental missionary, and every moment not working as a dental missionary felt like failure or compromise. He had tried by every human effort to achieve the calling he had felt since junior high. When he understood the gospel, that Jesus had died for his sins, he determined to freely give God his life. He trudged through all the required education, not for hope of wealth, but to be able to extend the felt love of God to people through meeting a basic, practical need.

Momma’s main take-away from 1987 was a tangible sense of the comfort and grace of God. She felt the comfort of the Holy Spirit as she went about her daily mothering and choring. She became acquainted with the ministry of communicating the gospel to children and began to learn how to effectively communicate valuable Bible stories to children and to take lessons from the Bible to apply to life. I remember beginning to learn Bible verses using songs, and Momma was SO enthusiastic about children learning the Bible for themselves forever after. Up until the moment Momma went to be with Jesus, she still worked and advocated for communicating the gospel to children so they will find, in God, what they need for everlasting life.

Apparently, I became moody after the grief and disappointment of our baby dying before he was born. Dad started working at a dental clinic in Corpus Christi, Texas the day I turned five. We lived in town for a little bit, then moved to another area based on reports of a better school district. Momma did some experiments on my attitude by having all the other kids be especially sweet to me one day, and I responded with something like “why does everybody suddenly love me?” She realized that I was very sensitive to my perception of people’s treatment of me.

Momma took teacher training and started a Good News Club in our neighborhood. We lived in a little apartment complex across the street from the elementary school, and I started first grade there. Momma would study and practice for her Bible lesson all week to prepare, and she often practiced with us as her audience. One time when she practiced sharing an invitation to believe the gospel, I responded with “yes.” I would respond over and over to the invitation throughout my early childhood, but I did feel like something new was happening inside of me. I felt seen and loved by God. I began to sense the reality of the invisible God.

My first grade Sunday school teacher helped me memorize Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. ” As my parents and various Christian disciple makers continued to pour into my life, I came to appreciate the journey that the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ had taken to get all the way to me. To this day, I remember Psalm 100 memorized as part of my 1st Grade homeschool work. I felt connected, not only to the God of the Bible, but also to everyone who had ever truly believed beside me and before me. When my heart was sad as a teen,I remember pulling a Bible from a shelf full of Bibles and reading Psalm 27 over and over with full confidence in God’s love and Truth. I still remember and greatly appreciate each Pastor God provided to teach the Word of God with consistent commitment. I saw many, many examples of lives built on God’s principles full of passionate love of God for His sheep.

My childhood was also enriched by my parents’ exuberant study of the lives of faithful disciples of Jesus past and contemporary. I gleaned ideas of how people have lived their lives completely differently because they prioritized first the kingdom of God. These examples include the 12 Apostles, Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, Mary Slessor, Gladys Aylward, the brothers John and Charles Wesley, Jim and Elizabeth Elliot and their co-laborers, Billy Graham, Bill and Gloria Gaither, Keith Green, David Wilkerson, Joni Erickson Tada, Ray Comfort, Don Richardson, the story of the Mouk tribe, The Heavenly Man, and so many more examples of how it works out for those who put God first. Biographies, journals, celebrations, exhortations, countless souls turning from spiritual bondage and fear to clear consciences before God and love.

I remember a specific instance of feeling God impress something into my young heart. My daily chore was vacuuming, and I disagreed with Momma about some particulars of the job. One day when I was begrudgingly thinking about whether to do it Mom’s way or my way, Someone dropped a thought into my mind: “You love your Mamma. Why do you go against her?” It pierced into my heart, which was trying to be hard to protect myself. I felt my heart shift as I felt warm love for Momma fill my heart from God’s heart. I suddenly cared about how Momma felt as much as how I felt. I can’t remember exactly when this happened, but I see it now as an early example of God undoing some premature hardening of my heart.

The gospel has been very familiar to me since I can remember. I memorized Scripture, listened to sermons, heard and then taught Bible lessons, did Bible studies, and read a Proverb a day for many years starting in fifth grade. I worked on memorizing Bible verses during down time in sixth grade. I was oddly quiet among fellow students and did not use the rough language of the rest of the class. I became a youth leader helping younger children learn Bible verses and Bible lessons. I dreamed of being a jungle missionary or going off somewhere very remote like so many of the missionary stories I had read. The prevailing wind of my household blew towards going as a missionary to somewhere else. I did not think it could be possible, as a kid, for God’s will to be anything else for anyone.

For all of my knowledge, I still did not really have personal conviction of my sin. Although I prayed the prayer of repentance many times, I did not truly sense myself to be lost or in need of change. I focused on gaining approval by doing all the things I learned that I was supposed to do. I worked hard to prove my faith by many works. God made sure to bring conviction of my sinfulness to me and graced me with the gift of repentance and faith in Him. I want nothing more than to be in God’s kingdom forever.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the Word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me (John 15:1-4.)” As God showers my life with His Word and His working in my heart, my part is to let go of my sinful ways allowing God to change the very nature of my heart to produce His intended result in my life.

For all my works, I still held a thought deep down of doing God’s tasks like a nine-to-five job with free time being me time. As if doing well in the outward appearance of righteousness earned leisure time of my own. After decades of God’s continued training and refining, I now understand that I don’t want any time away from my Lord. God isn’t like human bosses. He doesn’t manipulate or degrade. Also, life is not divided between spiritual tasks and completely non-spiritual tasks. Every task is an opportunity to practice applying God’s principles, to discipline myself, to yield my will, and to serve others with God’s grace. In my gardening “hobby” I continually ask for the Creator to teach my heart of His infinite wisdom. I have been blessed to share my garden with neighbors. If He asks me to drop it and take a different task, my hands remain open in submission.

“Enlarge the place of your tent, And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your stakes. For you shall expand to the right and to the left, And your descendants will inherit the nations, And make the desolate cities inhabited. Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; Neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame; For you will forget the shame of your youth” Isaiah 54:2-4a.

I must daily lay before Him all my desires and continually love and pursue Him forever. He wants me to be faithful in prayer for others. He wants me to be faithful in a whole list of things that are valued as much as the widow’s mites by the world around us. The calling is a continual, never-ending relationship of love, trust, and obedience to Him. He will develop the step-by-step plan for me and will bear fruit in my life. Not by my ability, but by my surrender.

In nature, He created many examples of divine design of invisible living processes giving rise to all kinds of abundant blessings. The caterpillar transforms to a butterfly. An egg houses a brand new eagle. A tiny sunflower seed turns into a mammoth fourteen foot tall plant with a flower the size of half a volleyball.

In Matthew 13:33 He says, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened.” In the middle of ordinary daily of life, God’s Word is transforming hearts that are broken and dying into hearts that are clean and thriving. The compounded impact of continuous quiet obedience to God’s Word brings about change beyond our ability to calculate.