Stars, Rain, Trees: equatorial truths on a blazing Sunday

Perhaps we are all concrete and pictorial thinkers. Certainly a truth in a sentence does not enter the soul with the same power, or endure in the memory as long, as truth in a story, experience, picture, person. And the combination of visual, tactile, exertional beauty when out in the natural world makes that a key place to encounter authenticity. Psalms often paint a picture that challenges or settles the spirit. 

Our team is almost through Isaiah, and the last two weeks we've looked at 55 and 58, rich with metaphor and poetic invitation, landing in the reality of hunger and injustice. Three pictures end chapter 55 and keep coming back to me, finding them everywhere as reminders of how to survive this world.

First, STARS. The nighttime sky in equatorial Africa, often undiluted by electric lights, a glimpse into enormity. God's thoughts are not our thoughts, ways are not our ways, just as we can barely imagine lightyears and relativity and black holes and galaxies. The austere beauty, mystery, constancy settle our soul into trusting that as much as we try to systematise and predict and take responsibility, we are limited to a tiny sliver of atmosphere in a universe of wonder. The book of Job is synonymous with suffering, and God's answer is chapter 38. Look at the complexity and intricacy of all God has made. Stars remind us that we are limited, and called to faith.

Second, RAIN. We're in dry season here in Bundibugyo, but we still have gathering clouds and rumbles of thunder. Rain comes to earth, sometimes in deluges but more often in intermittent gentle showers, longed for, not always convenient, certainly not entirely predictable and never controllable. Rain seeps into the ground in hidden ways, and out of view has the effect of germinating seeds and causing growth, of filtering into streams and rivers and bringing life. God's work in the world is like that. Jesus said, consider the lily, to say don't worry, God is at work. Stars picture God's transcendence but rain God's hidden nearness, a humble behind the scenes building for good, that we also must wait on with patience.

And last, TREES. Branching to the stars above, reaching down roots to the rain below, trees give us a glimpse of the Eden to come, the all-things-new to which we strive as redemption changes the world. Isaiah says they will clap their hands. Romans 8 is a perennial favourite but today verse 18 grabbed my attention: the sufferings of this present time (which are real, half our team is sick and kids missing school and wheezing, and all of us face deception and disagreement and danger and disappointment) are not worthy to  to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed. It's easy for me to long for better times by looking back into the past, and resign myself now to the slog of entropy. But this actually says that the best is still to come. We're headed to something. No matter how hard life seems, there is a promise of better.

February in East Africa is hot and bright and dusty and energy-sapping. It's 90-some degrees outside and almost that inside our screened home. But we still ponder the stars, revel in the limited raindrops, and try to stay shaded by our massive mango tree.

Stars, because we don't grasp all the mystery. Rain, because we depend on the inexorable work of the Spirit. Trees, to remind us of hope. Now these three remain, faith, love and hope. Thanks for praying we can remain too.

CSB first Sunday morning service of 2023. Pray we can lead a few hundred kids into faith, hope, and love too!

Rain does its work, banana and cassava and palms giving life to this home.

Yesterday our team did a walk in memory of Dr. Travis Johnson . . tomorrow will be 3 years since he died. The Johnsons joined our team in 2010, as leaders and a much needed doctor/teacher combo. Their story reflects Job and the mystery of God's ways not being our plans, as he discovered metastatic colon cancer only a couple years into his mission service, and their road took an unwanted turn to years of therapy and struggle. But they held onto God's sweet rain at work, and hope of a new heaven and new earth and new body where we will all see Travis again. Until then we honour his life and mourn his death, and wait.