Pastoral Ponderings— Sweet Journey
Thanks to Rick Burt and that great big maple boiling pan, we were able to get most of our maple sap boiled down all in one day this past Saturday! This is only our second year on our maple syrup tapping adventure, so we’re learning more each time, refining our processes each step of the way. I’m pondering today how the various steps in making maple syrup might show us a little more about different facets of our life of discipleship.
First off, it’s amazingly simple, yet it takes almost constant attention, from first identifying the right trees to canning the final product. Our life of discipleship is the same way—once we’ve identified that Jesus is the right one to tap into for the Sweet Life, a life of Discipleship is a life of intentionality every step of the way as we simply love God and love our neighbors. The sap is free to whomever taps in—but you don’t get the Good Stuff by just standing around and looking at the trees! So the next step in tapping after identifying the right trees, is to drill holes in the trees and insert the taps to get to the Good Stuff. Likewise, you can’t get to the Good Stuff with Jesus by just looking at Him—you need to tap into Him in order to “abide in” Jesus and remain in that vine.
The blessings then start to flow! But not always—the conditions need to be right—below freezing overnight, getting into the 40’s in the daytime. Like the dynamics of the weather required for the sap to flow, our tapping into Jesus is also a dynamic source of flowing blessings, when we stay in the right environment.
The sap then needs to be boiled down—refined by fire. The Good Stuff is already in the sap, but it is not fully released except through that refining by fire. Part of our faith journey, too, involves being refined by fire, by hard testing, because while the Good Stuff of the transforming grace of Jesus is already there, the testing brings out the sweet transformation of our Journey with Jesus.
So next time you pour some syrup on your pancakes or whatever, use the syrup as a reminder of how we grow in our faith—simple, yet an on-going, intentional journey. And then we can enjoy the Sweet Life of abiding in Jesus through it all!
Pastor Jim