Mark Sorensen I was talking with someone today about how living in the Woodlands is a bit like living in the movie, “The Field of Dreams”. Remember that one? The baseball players would just sort of emerge out of the corn to play baseball? Same concept in the Woodlands except take the baseball players out of the equation, swap them with people and exchange the corn for trees. Lots and lots of trees. Seriously. For example. I make the morning commute to drop my daughter off at College Park High School and, as I sit in car pool line to drop her off, no kidding here… students just sort of emerge from the trees and walk into the school. No idea where they come from. They just sort of walk out of the trees. Honestly. It kind of creeps me out.
Of course, the benefit here is we are learning what’s behind the trees and that has led to some pretty terrific discoveries, one of which was a trip to a restaurant that welcomed you with a 55 foot salad bar. My first thought? That’s a lot of salad. Of course, if someone was going to go through the effort to create a salad bar that huge, why not give it a go. So, we gave it a shot for lunch one day.
My salad starts out pretty great. Really. Iceberg lettuce, some romaine, some spinach. Not bad. Then throw in there some tomatoes. Seriously. Who wants to eat just a plate of green. But wait, it gets better. Bacon. I mean, come on. What doesn’t bacon work with? Add cheese. Here it gets tough. Do you go with feta, cheddar or white cheddar? To be on the safe side, I add some of all three. Croutons. Come on, who wants to eat something that doesn’t have AT LEAST a tiny crunch effect to it? Then there’s the dressing. Throw on a couple ladles of your favorite dressing and, “Voila”! Funny thing is, that plate that started out green? Not so green any more. Initially, I just wanted a salad. What I ended up with? Less salad, more junk.
Here’s the thing. We can do the same with our spiritual lives. In John 4, Jesus has this encounter with the woman at the well. It didn’t take long into this conversation for Jesus to identify something pretty huge about this samaritan woman. She had given herself to man after man, relationship after relationship, and it left her empty, isolated, and gathering water from a well at the hottest part of the day, away from community. Jesus quickly challenged her to stop drinking from a culture and the immediate gratification of needs that would never satisfy. Instead? Find her source of life in Him. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst” (John 4:14).
Here’s the good news. You are loved by the Creator of the Universe. You are loved so much, in fact, that He sent His son to die on the cross for your sins and my sins. Because of this, there’s forgiveness, grace and mercy extended to each of us on a daily basis. Each morning we awake, these attributes are on the plate ready to sustain us as we move through our days. Literally, our plates are overflowing with the richness of God’s mercies. The challenge? Let’s not ladle a bunch of unnecessary junk and heap it on top of God’s goodness. Let’s not cheapen God’s grace and exchange it for the immediate gratification of what the world entices us with.
Check out the Message version of 2 Corinthians 9:8-11
God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done. As one psalmist puts it, He throws caution to the winds, giving to the needy in reckless abandon. His right-living, right-giving ways never run out, never wear out. This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God
The good news of the Gospel message? THAT is good news that sustains.
