Lost in the Crowd

I was standing on the median strip between the East bound and West bound traffic when I took these photos; there are two rows of different flowering plants here, both having very lovely flowers as you can see in the close up photos: As we drive past at 60 kilometres per hour we think “those flowers look nice” but unless we stop and take the time to examine them, we will never know how nice. This of course applies to our life generally; we look at a forest but don’t really see the individual trees that make the forest, or even notice that every one of them has its own different charistics.

The Dubbo “Photo news” Newspaper publishes the photos of the babies born in the hospital each week, and what a collection of delightful little faces they are; every one being different but beautiful, like those flowers above. People walking past you in the Mall or in the street were lovely babies too, some time ago, but in many cases are now showing the signs of “wear and tear”, which is natural as they may have been living in circumstances that haven’t always been ideal and caused them stress. Meanwhile, the sun and wind dry out their skin which also adds to that ageing appearance. However, most women combat that dry skin problem by using moisturising cream, but as good as that is, it only goes skin deep and unfortunately doesn’t solve those deeper problems of hurts and stress. I am pleased to say though that Jesus, who was brought up in a community like ours, recognised the needs we have and made some very helpful suggestions like: “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Paul who had been through hard times himself said: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6). Now that is “Spiritual Moisturising Cream” and if applied daily will make a terrific difference to our “Dry Souls”. It is a universal cure, irrespective of what you have been through or who you are.

This is not some vague theory to me, as I have had my share of “difficulties” and regularly apply this “Spiritual Ointment”, without which I could not exist. However, I was fortunate that as a child I learned that we need complete commitment to whatever we take on, if we are to make the most of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

For example, in this photo (taken some time ago) that is me in the foreground testing the water temperature in our home dam, with my big toe, and that just doesn’t work. My brother John and sister Anita did right; they just ran straight in and immersed themselves.

Likewise, if we want to accept the benefits God is offering us in the New Testament we cannot first “test it with our toe”; we must make a full commitment to accept His forgiveness and do things His way. Best wishes, as you think that through (if you haven’t already done so). Tom.