Today’s highway is paved, flat, barren, and ugly, but adequate and necessary, nonetheless, for our purpose of journey – to pull our little “home away from home,” headed north to our destination, yet 600 miles away. The eyes of my driver, the man I’ve journeyed with nearly 50 years must scan the road, follow the lanes, obeying the signage and lineage. I choose to observe the landscape – instead of the road.
Tall, straight birch and poplar border the edge of the thick, dense woods, filled with pines and hardwoods with heavier foliage, but also tall and straight. As the bordering birch and poplar, each tree evidences its struggle to reach the sky, each in search of sunshine. The forest floor below them is plush with seedlings and saplings. Green life is unending in these groves of the north. Neither wind nor fire has squelched the growth. We see indication of past attacks of those enemies, as they have tried, time after time to destroy but have never fully succeeded, all because of the unending new growth, found deep in the womb of the soil – ever rooting and ever rising – toward the sun.
The sun is the sustenance of this green life, its reason, its purpose.
Today, as we drive north, the flora around us reflects the sun, revealing deeper and varying shades of emeralds and olives and limes and sages. Up and down the hills of the fallow path we travel, trees stretching upward. Because of the hills, we sometimes view them at levels below their roots, sometimes above their tops, looking down at an unending pillow of forest jade.
Intermittently, a sandy trail weaves through its thickness. I wonder who, if anyone, has traveled that trail today, and if so, where was he going? And why?
I travel to reach a quiet spot where I hope to avoid daily routines and distractions. I seek a deeper communion with Jesus. I hope to find rest in the Lord and rid myself of the distress of unrest flaunted by the media. I hope to calm my heart. I hope to listen and to hear.
A billion people are on journeys today, and I know very few, yet God knows each one. He knows you – your needs – your desires – your hopes. And He wants you to rest in Him. In fact, He offers it.
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Further Reading: Psalm 91
Click here to read Post 2 in this series: “I Own This Property on the Great Lake.”
Quite often we go thru life looking but not seeing. I’m sure there is good to be gleaned from 2020 and my trust is that Jesus has a master plan for all of us to understand and see more clearly.
Was a good time to learn to “rest” in Him. I need to carry the practice forward!