We often seem to understand and see
things more clearly when seen in picture or parable form.
A few years ago, I saw an award-winning short film on TV
which graphically illustrated to me something we often do
not only to each other, but also see in Christianity and
"ought not to be". We recently found the film
on YouTube and have included it here:
This world is like a desert where we may see
very little genuine Life. I saw through this picture how
I had not only experienced having things stomped on and
spat out, but how I myself had either stomped on, torn
out by the roots, chewed and spat out or otherwise
mis-treated Life which others had planted. Our words -
especially critical and negative words - can bring death.
Just because somebody else's plant or growth
may not look like mine, is no reason to destroy it. It
might be a cactus instead of a flower, or a tree instead
of a rosebush - but providing it is Life and that the
Seed planted IS Christ, the form matters very little!
There is incredible diversity in Life! Of course there
are many artificial plants out there too. They have the
name of being a plant, they may look like they have Life
but they are not, and never will be, living. There are
also plants which have been tampered with and man has
changed their natural form creating a hybrid to serve his
own needs and desires. However, I am not referring to
those who pretend to be something they are not or who
"help" by creating something other and
"bigger and better" than God wants. True,
genuine Life comes from only One and I am talking about
our brothers and sisters who do know Christ and who plant
something which does originate from Him and His Life.
We all need to respect that Life and not
only appreciate it, but also defend it from being stomped
on, torn out by the roots, eaten and spat out etc. I particularly liked the ending of
the film because in the end it wasn't an individual thing
but a corporate thing, brought about by their combined
tears and suffering together. The plants weren't owned by
each of them because they had individually planted
and watered the seed, instead the Life and growth was a
result of the downpour from their tears: "It's not
the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the
center of this process but God, who makes things
grow." (1 Cor. 3:7).
"There
is nothing that is precious to the Lord, and which He
would make the property of His people, but there will
be suffering for it. It will only become their
property - in that sense - as they suffer for it, and
then woe betide who criticizes that! If you are
detached from a thing, if you are detached from a
testimony, from a work of God, you can do all the
criticizing you like. You have no inward
heart-relationship to it, and so you pass your
judgments upon it. But if you are in it and you have
suffered, if it has been a costly thing where you are
concerned, then you are seeing more than all the
failings, more than all those faults. The people who
can criticize like that and judge and point out
faults are the people who have not suffered.
"On
the other side, we may know all the terms, all the
phraseology, all the doctrine, all the truth, and it
may be just objective, something we have heard; we
have lived in the midst of it, it is familiar to us.
But what the Lord will do if that is to become ours
is to take us into travail over the matter. He will
relate that thing to our hearts in a deep, inward
way, so that none of us will be able to say, 'I know
all about that, I have heard all about that, I could
tell you all that you could tell me about that'. The
Lord would so work in a costly, deep and painful way
in relation to that, to make it ours through travail,
that we are brought into a new position. We are not
spectators, looking on, criticizing; we are on the
inside, looking out, defending. We are jealous over
it. Suffering is a great purifying thing. It destroys
selfishness. It destroys that self-interest that is
the cause of so much of the trouble. It makes us in a
disinterested way jealous for what is of God. Yes,
suffering purifies, and suffering makes this deep,
inward link.
"It
gives an extra feature to things. That extra feature
where we cannot just be occupied with faults and be
people of a criticizing attitude, the extra feature
with a love which covers a multitude of sins. We have
suffered together. When we suffer together, what a
lot we get over! We have gone through it together,
perhaps through the years. We have been in the fire
together, and there is a love, there is a jealousy
which, let people say what they will about the other
persons, simply rises up in us because we have
suffered." (T. Austin-Sparks http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/002012.html )
Lord, return our prisoners again, as
you bring streams to the desert.
Those who cry as they plant crops will sing at harvest
time.
Those who cry as they carry out the seeds will return
singing and carrying bundles of grain.
For the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her
waste places.
And He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert
like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and
the voice of song! Psalm 126:4-6, Isaiah 51:3
