I had already taken my morning rounds and saw that the mother pigeon was all right and saw that both eggs had become birds. Having some extra time I purposed to take up a long-postponed chore and began to separate partially shelled pecans from their delectable meat. I would try to think of someone who needed prayer with each pecan processed. It worked for a while until I was blessedly distracted by the thought, “How thoughtful of God to prepare the pecan, covered with a protective shell and filled with nutritious and delicious meat.” Wow, God You thought of it all and showed us Your love in the strangest of ways. You gave us the gift of appetite and gave us appetizing things to satisfy us while enriching our physical bodies.
I was fixing breakfast now and began to prepare a banana as a part of the breakfast menu. Since I was in a meditative mood already over the pigeon and the pecan, I thought, “What about this banana?” It is the perfect fruit (unless you want to cook it and make it a vegetable). It is neatly packed in a biodegradable carton, easily separated from its cover and even looks attractive and inviting. Its taste is beyond description and its nutritional value beyond assessment (I have a multipage report on its powerful nutritional values, its energy-giving potential, and its multivitamin treasures posted on my refrigerator).
I think I will never again eat a banana without repeating the thoughts of this meditation. God, You are so good to prepare such a delectable, easily prepared and health-filled snack for those you love, both monkeys and mankind.
Yesterday, I saw the love of God in a new way through the prism of the pigeon, the pecan and the banana. I found myself beginning to sing the old song on the love of God that I learned, played and sang as a boy. As I came to the last verse I remembered that in that now-ancient book where I first found the song, a note read that this verse was found written on the wall of a room in an insane asylum:
Could we with ink the oceans fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.
Now that is big love and I have a feeling that it is bigger than we can imagine. So you are now free to start anywhere, with a pigeon, a pecan or a banana or anything else and be reminded of a love unbounded . . . for you!
JRT
A MEDITATION: PIGEONS
I saw God’s love yesterday. As often the case I saw it through a prism of earthly hues. It was early and I would eventually prepare breakfast for my wife and me. I had some time.
First, I saw the pigeon. She had outwitted me at least three times, coming into our front balcony with intentions of building a nest. I outwitted her two times, taking away her nesting place and then throwing away the sticks and stuff she had gathered for the nest. It was not a fair fight. By the time I got back from a brief time away she had come, prepared a lesser nest in an unused flower pot and laid two eggs. Now I know when I am defeated. I am not a pigeon lover, doves are my choice, but in this case I am being changed. I have watched this lady bird totally rearrange her life around the potential of other lives. We have become quite friendly with one another, I am getting more forward with her and she is becoming less fearful of me. It was the eggs that did it, each of them a potential for life. I might shoo away a pesky pigeon but I was not about to destroy a life potential.
So I waited and watched and meditated as God-given instincts took over in her and in me and yesterday was the payoff: two baby pigeons. I had totally capitulated to the fact of my defeat and fed her when her mate didn’t come back. I even talked kindly to her as she sat on the eggs ever so gently for weeks. I felt like a part of the process.
It was a wonderful, all-wise God who made the creatures and equipped them with instincts that speak of Himself and us. Bound by these instincts, Mrs. Pigeon went to great inconveniences to bring these lives into the world. Had she been Mrs. Jones or Miss Smith, having a choice, she could have determined that she was not ready for such drastic responsibilities or inconveniences and opted to crush the eggs with her feet or root them out of the nest, watching them splatter on the surface of our balcony floor. She would have been quite within the bounds of law and in agreement with the A.C.L.U. and most politicians. But she was a bird and not a woman, bound by inner drives given by a loving, just and merciful God.
Yesterday as I watched the little baby birds nestle in their new world under the careful, gentle weight of their mother. I nestled, in response under the gentle, ever-present weight of divine providence and somehow knew that all was well in this turbulent world Now, we will wait until the little birds grow up enough to leave their nest and the cycle of life goes on. Next time I will be a little softer, more permissive, and silently grateful for the lady bird that out-deceived me three times to two, won my admiration and reminded me of my Father’s love.
By the way, though I do not dislike pigeons anymore, doves still remain my choice.
JRT
First, I saw the pigeon. She had outwitted me at least three times, coming into our front balcony with intentions of building a nest. I outwitted her two times, taking away her nesting place and then throwing away the sticks and stuff she had gathered for the nest. It was not a fair fight. By the time I got back from a brief time away she had come, prepared a lesser nest in an unused flower pot and laid two eggs. Now I know when I am defeated. I am not a pigeon lover, doves are my choice, but in this case I am being changed. I have watched this lady bird totally rearrange her life around the potential of other lives. We have become quite friendly with one another, I am getting more forward with her and she is becoming less fearful of me. It was the eggs that did it, each of them a potential for life. I might shoo away a pesky pigeon but I was not about to destroy a life potential.
So I waited and watched and meditated as God-given instincts took over in her and in me and yesterday was the payoff: two baby pigeons. I had totally capitulated to the fact of my defeat and fed her when her mate didn’t come back. I even talked kindly to her as she sat on the eggs ever so gently for weeks. I felt like a part of the process.
It was a wonderful, all-wise God who made the creatures and equipped them with instincts that speak of Himself and us. Bound by these instincts, Mrs. Pigeon went to great inconveniences to bring these lives into the world. Had she been Mrs. Jones or Miss Smith, having a choice, she could have determined that she was not ready for such drastic responsibilities or inconveniences and opted to crush the eggs with her feet or root them out of the nest, watching them splatter on the surface of our balcony floor. She would have been quite within the bounds of law and in agreement with the A.C.L.U. and most politicians. But she was a bird and not a woman, bound by inner drives given by a loving, just and merciful God.
Yesterday as I watched the little baby birds nestle in their new world under the careful, gentle weight of their mother. I nestled, in response under the gentle, ever-present weight of divine providence and somehow knew that all was well in this turbulent world Now, we will wait until the little birds grow up enough to leave their nest and the cycle of life goes on. Next time I will be a little softer, more permissive, and silently grateful for the lady bird that out-deceived me three times to two, won my admiration and reminded me of my Father’s love.
By the way, though I do not dislike pigeons anymore, doves still remain my choice.
JRT
SOUL TALK SERIES #3 - THE PLACE OF THE SOUL IN THE LIFE OF MAN
It is said, and I believe correctly, that man is a threefold being, a trinity if you please. Assuming that this is true, we may also say that I am a spirit, I have a soul and I live in a body. We are spirit beings, meant to contain the life of God. A man without God is a man who is dead to God in his Spirit. He very much alive to sin but totally unresponsive to God until the Spirit of God takes the initiative to convict the soul of sin. The soul involves the faculty of will, thought and emotion. Mere religion cannot touch the spirit but has influence over the soul and body. The Spirit of God urges man to think about the claims of Christ, feel the need of Christ and when there is the gift of faith, he decides to receive Christ. This brings about the new birth. The result? A new creation! A perfect creation? No, but an experience has occurred that has changed man at the core of his being and from the core, his spirit, now containing God’s Spirit, As all this comes about, he begins to live in a new realm with new spiritual faculties. His spirit, once dead, becomes alive and from that time the life of God in man begins to do His work. His soul develops a new identity, a new creation.
There is a real sense in which the scope of salvation is Trinitarian, a living, continuing power in man. I was saved immediately in my spirit; I am being saved gradually in my soul and will ultimately be saved in my body when it becomes a body such as Jesus possessed after His resurrection.
Now, back to the soul: Before the event of the new birth the unredeemed soul was its own center, the untouched ego. In salvation there is a new center, the spirit where God’s Spirit dwells. The soul -- our expression of authentic identity becomes a servant of the human spirit and God’s spirit in developing expressions of new creation qualities, better known as the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace and so on.
It is at the point of the soul that growth takes place under the influence of God’s Spirit in us emanating His character through our entire being. One of greatest declarations in Scripture regarding the work of God in man’s soul is 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “Now, may God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through (completely) . May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The next verse boldly derclares, “The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it.”
Now, this has been a quick run-through bringing us to the place of the soul, now under the influence of the Spirit reaching the whole man. Discipleship becomes a continuing therapy of soul training and the body happily becomes a servant of the soul which is the servant of the Spirit of God in man’s redeemed soul.
JRT
SOUL TALK SERIES #5 - THE ASTONISHING REACHES OF THE SOUL
To examine the soul from any position -- and there are many positions -- is to be startled and astonished at the potent power of the soul. Whether we have decided that the soul is a duality or a trinity, neither position puts a dent on the impressiveness of this part of mankind. The fact that one’s personality derives from the nature of his soul may be foundational as well as correct. It is here that character is implemented as well as expressed. To know a person in his or her soul is to really know him or her. This amazing entity in every person has powerful influence in many directions, none more powerful and spectacular than what we say in the next words.
The soul has the power to boast and seems to be the seat of pride, both good and bad. Not all boasting is the fruit of pride. One can boast of things good, noble and productive or one can boast of self and self exaltation. The Scripture says, This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom or the strong man boast in his strength or the rich man boast in his riches but let him who boasts boast in this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight (Jeremiah 9:23-24).”
Now that leads us right away to what was said of David or by David in a very trying time in his life, “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will boast in the Lord; the afflicted shall hear and be glad.” And there you have it, arguably the most appealing reach of the soul of man, to be able to boast in the Lord and, at the same time, cause rejoicing among the suffering ones.
I don’t pretend to be thorough in my intellectual understanding of the human soul, but this I know: with whatever this is within me called a soul, I can brag on God to God and, in the act, cause rejoicing among those who hear and hurt.
Now, that is influence! As you think on this, consider that your soul has far-reaching capacities and potential and reaches out when you may not realize it. You can with proper soul care and discipline point your soul toward suffering humanity and leave a blessed trail of joy and happiness in your wake.
Be astonished at your soul, dear friend, within its reach are many waiting for someone whose soul is awakened to its seeming infinite reaches.
JRT
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