Lessons from Isaiah’s Allotment

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Isaiah 30:21

 

This reminded me of the time recently when my wife and I took our 2 year old granddaughter to Helen’s allotment. Helen was busy picking strawberries and raspberries whilst I went back and forth amongst the plots fetching water from the trough. Ella came with me each time, often running a couple of paces ahead. No matter how many times we had been there she consistently took wrong turns and needed me to say, “This way Ella.”

Being short she couldn’t see above the fences and towering crops, where as I, from my lofty perspective, could easily see out destination and how to get to it. Also, as a 2 year old she hasn’t yet learnt her left and right, nor does she live in a world where she has to make her own way around. She has loving, attentive parents (and grandparents) to guide and direct her. Much like we have a loving and attentive Father God who looks down from His lofty perspective and says from behind, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Devotional

Don’t hide:

don’t run,

but rather

discover in the midst of fragmentation

a new way forward:

a different kind of journey

marked by it’s fragility,

uncertainty

and lack of definition.

And on that path

to hold these hands

that even in their brokenness

create a new tomorrow.

To dance at the margins,

and to see

the face of Christ

where hurt

is real and

pain a way of life.

To be touched

in the eye of the storm,

aware that tomomorrow

may not bring peace.

Impossible, you say;

let me retreat

and find my rest.

What rest, my friend,

in these fragmented times?

Peter Millar