Shupe Shire: Dust and Rain

Dust swirled. It reminded me of our hearts. Dry. Weary. A failing of such promise. A spring with no rain following a winter without snow. Hot holy week. The soil scorched like our hearts. The rivers had no winter melt surge. Sounds like our lives. Sounds like my life. Where is the promise? The failures, the foibles. Call them what they are: SIN. Sin everywhere. Wreaking havoc. Destroying relationships. I feel the crust forming.
The battle with bitterness.
The battle with self-love.
The battle with self-righteousness.
One battle that I find so hard to fight. I feel I fall from bitterness to self-righteousness to self-love to ....

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against my members.

This near daily struggle. I have a brother that hates me. I pause to even mention it because I do not trust my heart on this matter. It has been years in the making. Years in the playing out. I tire...
Season pass. I think my heart is healed. Relationship no. Heart yes. Then recently day after day. Waves returned by three fingered "read between the lines". The gut wrenches. Even as I write. A hello returned with in days by being almost driven off the road. Recently these things have escalated. The dust was blowing across the growing bareness of my heart. Bitterness and self-righteousness rearing their ugly heads.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Our great weekend of hope. Christ's victory! The cross!!! The empty grave!!!
The rains started falling...

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

And fell all week. A specific timely encounter and my heart is before my eyes. And Christ's reign is on my heart.

[Walk] according to the Spirit...those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit...To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace...But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you."

So, I run to the Word. Repentance. Romans. The rain falls...soft and long. And I recall...

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs-heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
-Romans 7-8

Thank you Lord for...

220. The beauty of chlorophyll.

221. The beauty of chlorophyll and sunshine at work after warm rains.

222. That Christ doesn't leave us to our own devices and efforts.

223. miles and miles of safe, fun travel with my peeps.

224. grace. Without we would have nothing good.

225. predominantly healthy cattle through the calving season so far.

226. fat, lazy, friendly dogs.