Minute Meditations

The grass in our front lawn is dying in spots. We started out in the spring with a beautiful solid green lawn, but gradually it began to get thin in certain areas, and now there is nothing there but dirt. The rest of the lawn is still healthy and vigorous. What happened? Why did the lawn die in some places and not in others? The sycamore trees that hang over the front lawn are so thick that there are certain areas of the lawn that the sun never reaches. In the spring, when the leaves were just coming on the trees, the sun reached every inch of lawn, but not now. When the sun couldn’t get through, the lawn died.

Isaiah tells us that ”all flesh is grass,” and David declares ”As for man, his days are as grass.” Could we be like the lawn? When the Son of Righteousness shines in our lives we are healthy and spiritually vibrant, but what happens when the Son no longer radiates in our lives? We, like the lawn, first become thin and straggly and finally we just fade away. Now it isn’t the sun’s fault that our lawn is dying. It rises every morning in the east as always, and it shines just as brightly as it ever did. The problem is that a tree has gotten in the way between the sun and the lawn. When Jesus no longer shines in our lives, it isn’t his fault. He is always willing to shine if we will just bask in his glory but we can allow the world to get in the way between the Son of Righteousness and ourselves. This is spiritual suicide.

The moon has no light of itself; it can only reflect the light that it receives from the sun. We, too, have no light of ourselves but reflect the light that comes from the Son of God. Every so often there is an eclipse of the moon. This happens when the earth comes between the sun and the moon, and during this eclipse the moon goes completely dark. Once again the reason for the darkness is that the earth prevents the sun from shining on the moon.

Certainly we can see the spiritual significance of this. In these two analogies, the tree in our front yard and the earth both represent the things of the world which come between us and the Son. When we no longer receive his healing beams we cease to grow, our light goes out, and we spiritually die. The people of the world like the dark, for their deeds are evil. They prefer the shade away from the searching light of Jesus Christ, but what about us?

There is a happy answer to our lawn problem. All we have to do is thin out and prune back the branches of the tree so the sun can come through again, and our lawn will grow back to the thick green carpet it once was. So too with the eclipse of the moon, be patient and wait until the earth moves out of the way, and the moon will shine as bright as ever again.

The big question is, are we cutting and pruning out of our lives the things that are coming between us and the Son? As long as they remain in the way we are in serious trouble spiritually. It may hurt to cut and prune, but it is a matter of life and death. If we decide to leave the tree alone, we have told Jesus that we prefer the things of the world to his light, and naturally we will spiritually die, This is a terrible thought, but what is worse, it is actually happening in the lives of some of Christ’s brethren. Let us each examine ourselves and cut out all those things that may be keeping the light of the Son of God from bursting into our lives. If we have conscientiously exposed our lives to the light of the Son of God, then Jesus when he comes will look upon us with pleasure and choose us ”to shine as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars for ever and ever.”