Best Where It Breaks

I washed fresh basil from my garden,
and broke off leaves and added them to the quartered cherry tomatoes.
My husband picked up a stem and breathed it in.
"Why does it always smell the best where it breaks?" he said.
"Because that's where the oil is released," I said, absentmindedly.
"Just like in real life," he answered.

To Your Advantage

"It is to your advantage that I go away;
for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you,
but if I depart, I will send Him to you."
~John 16:7

It seems so against reason.
But reading through John 14-17 again,
and focusing in on what concerns Jesus clues us in a little.
Jesus's concern in His teaching and prayer
is to bring us into fellowship with Himself and His Father.
To invite us to abide.
To cause us to abide -- to live with and in Himself.
While He remained, He kept them in His Father's name.
While the Holy Spirit remains, He will keep us in Jesus's name.

He prayed, "Sanctify them in Your truth. Your word is truth."
He had already told them, "When the Spirit of truth has come,
He will guide you into all truth."

How could it be to our advantage not to have Jesus with us?
Because the Holy Spirit's ministry is to unite us to Christ --
to be the medium through which we abide in Him;
to keep us;
to sanctify us in truth;
to make us one with Christ, who is one with the Father;
to unite each of us to each other.
Christ took that which is the Father's and made it ours.
The Holy Spirit takes from the Son and makes it ours.
Eternal life.
Union with the Father.
Sanctification.
The favor of God.
The love they share.

"As the Father has loved Me, I love you. Abide in My love."

The Father's love raised Him from the dead and made Him alive again.
Christ is our Resurrection and Life.
Jesus's love raises us from the dead and makes us alive.

Breathe in us, Holy Spirit, the life of Christ.
Be our unity, be our love.
Be our sanctification.
Hold us in the love of Christ, and the favor of God.

Knowing That

"Therefore, having been justified by faith, 
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
through whom also we have access by faith 
into this grace in which we stand, 
and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 
And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, 
knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 
and perseverance, character; 
and character, hope."
~Romans 5:1-4

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
But let patience have its perfect work,
that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."
~James 1

"By your patience possess your souls."
~Luke 21:19

It amazes me what they 'knew' that we seem ignorant of.
They knew that tribulation produces perseverance,
which produces character,
which produces hope.
They knew that the testing of our faith produces patience,
and patience works maturity in us.

I pondered this, and wondered at it.
But hope is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps I was under the impression they were magically imparted,
not worked into us.
These indicate that hope is the product of character
formed by perseverance,
produced by tribulation.
And patience is produced by the testing of my faith.

I thought about bread making.
How every ingredient of bread can be in my machine,
but if it isn't worked, it isn't bread.
The gluten only forms when they are combined by pressure and made to wait.
And the times when I have not quite snapped that little paddle into its power source,
and the pressure has not been transferred into the dough -- have been food disasters.
Nothing useful has resulted.
Time has not been sufficient to bring the dough to maturity.

"Be kindly affectionate with brotherly love,
in honor giving preference to one another;
not lagging in diligence,
fervent in spirit, 
serving the Lord;
rejoicing in hope,
patient in tribulation,
continuing steadfastly in prayer;
distributing to the needs of the saints,
given to hospitality..."
~Romans 12:10-13

Distilled in Silence

"As the Spirit of God descended upon the Lord Jesus, the head,
so He also, in measure, descends
upon the members of the mystical body.
His descent is to us after the same fashion
as that in which it fell upon our Lord.
There is often a singular rapidity about it...
Yet is there none of the hurry of earthly haste,
for the wings of the dove are as soft as they are swift.
Quietness seems essential to many spiritual operations;
the Lord is in the still small voice,
and like the dew, His grace is distilled in silence...
Blessed Spirit, as thou didst rest upon our dear Redeemer,
even so rest upon us from this time forward and for ever."

~From Morning and Evening, C.H. Spurgeon

The Wind Blows

My husband mentioned to the children tonight that if they are ever confused or upset, and they need to talk, that they can talk to us, and ask us questions, and although we won’t always know the answers to their questions, we would be happy to pray with them. He told them he didn’t want them to feel like they couldn’t talk about things. “And if it’s something private, you can ask, and we will talk to you privately.”

Without warning, a child sobbed out, “Sometimes I feel like I hate them (indicating the other children), and I don’t want to!” I held the child in my arms and heard the cries of torment over this hateful heart. It wasn’t self-pity. It was the horror of what was inside.

“This is why we need God to give us a new heart, a clean heart, because that same wicked hatred is in everyone’s heart.” I told the child that when I was a little girl, I knew that I was like Cain, with murder in my heart. I assured this child that although that is a very wicked sin, God’s word promises us that when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to wash us clean of all that sin. I said we needed to pray and ask God for a new heart, that the Lord would change that.

“I have been praying about it,” the child said. I prayed, too. We prayed 1 John 1:9, and we asked that the Holy Spirit would fill the child's heart with His love, and wash that sin away.

I said it was because the Holy Spirit was working in the child's life that the hateful heart disturbed the child -- there could be no peace with it. I talked about the Holy Spirit’s work -- that He is there to convict us both of sin, and of righteousness. That He points to our rotten hearts, and says, “This is sin -- it needs to go.” And that He points to good things, and says, “This is good.” And I prayed the child would be able to hear when the Holy Spirit is speaking. And I mentioned how I have seen this child choose to be kind and to do what is right even when I knew it was not easy. The child left my arms smiling and free. Two siblings were lined up for hugs.

“The wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going.
It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
(John 3:8)

It is a beautiful thing to see the effect of the Holy Spirit interacting with someone right before your eyes -- though you cannot see Him.