Pastoral Ponderings— Just dead trees?

Pastoral Ponderings— Just dead trees?

I was out in our wooded acres checking on our maple tappings, and collecting firewood for cooking down the sap into syrup, and was reminded out there how lifeless and depressing people sometimes find this time of year. Sure, they just look like dead trees, but if you look beyond appearances, God has put a lot of life and potential in those “dead” trees.

Tapping for maple syrup production can only happen this time of year from what looks like leafless and lifeless trees. When tapping, you’re actually tapping into the early flow of the sap up the tree to the budding leaves—collecting what is literally the life-blood of the tree, bringing back new life for the Spring. Other signs of new life are already showing (though unfortunately, the wild roses with all their thorns are among the first of the year to come back).

But even when trees are truly dead—or more dying than living—they are still sources of life. Woodpeckers and other creatures feast on the bugs that love dead and dying trees, and the rotted out holes from broken branches make cozy homes for countless creatures as well. They as the trees fall to the ground to return to their Maker, they end up creating a dynamic ecosystem that becomes the food source for plants, bugs and animals that become the foundation of the whole forest system food chain.

A powerful parable demonstrating that death not only provides the conditions for new life, but in many ways, is the actual source of new life. So is it really the depressing scene of lifelessness that it at first appears to be, when all we seem to see is just dead trees, or is that death really the playground where New Life is playing hide and seek in so many ways and places?

In our lives, too, we often find ourselves in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where things can seem hopeless, helpless and depressing. Yet in God’s ecology, as Jesus said in His elegant simplicity, “unless the seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12: 24)

I so love Jesus’ phrase, “s/he who has eyes (or ears), let them see (or hear).” I pray we all gain the eyes to see the often hidden gems of new life God is sowing all around us, especially in this season that seems to only offer dreariness.

– Pastor Jim

Pastoral Ponderings- Intentions, anyone?

So we’re now into the first few days of 2025—anyone broken their new year’s resolutions yet? There’s still time! To avoid that frustration and try to help people do better, I’ve been hearing a little change in that language more and more, suggesting new year “intentions” rather than resolutions. Might that work?

Whether with “resolutions,” “intentions” or whatever, we usually think this time of year of ways we’d like to grow in the new year—so what are you praying about for those growing edges this time? Most all of us often think of things like eating better, spending more time with important people in our lives, that sort of thing—but don’t forget your faith journey too!
A more consistent prayer life perhaps? A plan to read through the Bible in a year? Finding ways to get more comfortable sharing with others? All great intentions! With whatever plans, remember the scriptural encouragement, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” and “in our weakness, He is made strong”—great thoughts to remind us both that we’re not alone in this, and that God is eager to help us along the way.

One of the strengths of the early Methodist movement hundreds of years ago was how they developed a variety of “methods” to intentionally grow in the faith (hence the name detractors started called our forebearers, as “methodists”). One of those “methods” included meeting regularly together for accountability, asking the question of each in attendance, “how goes it with your soul?”

So how goes it with YOUR soul? Where do you need to grow in your faith this year? Do you trust that you CAN do all things through Christ? Do you trust that God can make us strong, even in our weakness? It’s easy to have doubts—but don’t your remember that one of Jesus’ superheroes was best known as the doubter—yet was still one of Jesus’ superheroes–so even our doubts are not show-stoppers!

Story goes that Ben Franklin in the deliberations at the Continental Congress in 1787 kept looking at the image on the chair George Washington presided from. Was it an image of a sunrise or sunset, he pondered, as a sign of the beginning or the end of their adventure? Each new year, each new day, is a new adventure for us—and WE know, that we’re not adventuring alone! Make it a new sunrise for your faith!

So in your new year intentions, keep your spiritual growth on your list, and make it a new year full of blessings! Pastor Jim