|
June 2001 Table of Contents
Food For Thought
Take It Or Leaf It
By Derric Johnson
 I was driving home when I saw a large pick-up truck sitting by the side of the road with a frustrated man forlornly standing along side, hands on his hips with that unmistakable 'I-give-up' stance so characteristic of the end of a long day when nothing has gone right. I couldn't see the man's face as I passed, but I did manage to recognize the name painted on the truck door...JOE BENSON PLUMBING. I pulled over to the curb. Joe lived on my street, but I didn't really know him. We had only talked a couple of times while we were calling our children in from play.
This day he had been restoring an old farmhouse. His electric drill had quit, the supplier had sent the wrong sized fittings and he had run over some nails on the job site that had finally done their damage and flattened not one, but two of his tires. It was in this stranded condition that I found him. "Can I help?" was my first cautious question. "You could give me a ride home. I'll take care of the truck later...I'd like to get some supper first."
While I drove him to our street, he sat in stony silence. When we got to his house he invited me in to meet his family. I took him up on the invitation (we have a lot of neighborhoods in America...but not enough neighbors). As we walked toward his front door, he paused briefly at a small tree and touched the tips of the branches with both hands.
When he opened his front door he underwent an amazing transformation...an absolute metamorphosis. His voice became animated, his tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss. He seemed like a different person.
Afterward he walked me out to the car to thank me for the ride. We passed that tree in his yard and my curiosity got the best of me. I asked him about what I had seen him doing to it earlier.
"Oh, that's my trouble tree," he replied. "I know I can't help having troubles on the job, but one thing's for sure, those troubles don't belong in the house with my wife and kids...so I just hang them up on that tree every night when I come home and ask God to take care of them."
"Oh, I get it...sort of take-it-or-leaf-it," I punned.
Ignoring the comment, he continued, "In the morning I come back out and pick them up again. Funny thing is," he smiled, "when I come out in the morning, there aren't nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before."
I got to my house and thought, "Tomorrow, I have to plant a tree in this yard."
Is there any way to escape hardships and problems? It doesn't appear so...It's like its God's plan for us. Problems do not in themselves cause any-thing in our lives...not excellence or illness, not growth or grouchiness. Trials are a neutral force until they land on a person. From then on it is how we react to those stresses that will bring us to conquest or carnage. The worst thing that happens to a man may be the best thing that ever happened to him if he doesn't let it get the best of him. If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song, and remember, what the caterpillar calls "the end," the butterfly calls "the beginning."
There is nothing more beautiful than a rainbow, but it takes both rain and sunshine to make it. If life is to be rounded and many colored, both joy and sorrow must come to it. Those who have never known anything but prosperity and pleasure become hard and shallow, but those with whom prosperity has been mixed with adversity become kind and gracious. The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
Life is full of imponderable questions and illusive answers. Like...
- If the world is getting smaller...why do postal rates keep going up?
- If people don't like tailgaters...why do they buy bumper stickers?
- If the best things in life are free...why are the next-best things so expensive?
- How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?
- When your pet bird sees you reading the newspaper...does he wonder why you're just sitting there staring at the carpet?
- Why did kamikaze pilots need helmets?
- Why does a cowboy need two spurs? If one side of the horse goes... so does the other.
- What was sliced bread the greatest thing since?
- If its true that we're here to help others...then what exactly are the OTHERS here for?
- Why is the word "abbreviation" so long?
- What's another word for "thesaurus?"
- Why are there Braille signs on drive-up ATM's?
- Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of the song?
- If I was you...who'd be me?
Don't sweat the small stuff. There are some things you just don't have to know... let alone worry about. Hang them all on your trouble tree.
A group of tourists was visiting a silversmith while he was at work. As he described the process of refining to them, someone asked, "Do you just sit here while this purification is going on?"
"Absolutely," he replied. "I have to sit with my eye steadily fixed on the furnace because if the time necessary for refining be exceeded in the slightest degree, the silver will be injured."
What words of comfort and beauty in the expression, "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, When Christ sees it needful to put His children into a furnace, His eye is steadily intent on the work of purifying, and His wisdom and love are both engaged in the best manner for them. Their trials do not come at random because the very hairs of your head are numbered."
As the group was leaving the shop, the silversmith called them back and said that he had forgotten to mention that he only knows when the process of purifying is complete when he sees his own image reflected in the silver.
Dana Gohn is a 37-year-old loving wife and mother of two young, charming children. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Seven of her 12 lymph nodes were affected and the cancer has spread to her bones...specifically her vertebrae and neck. She underwent radiation and chemotherapy...but they couldn't take care of the problem. Now she was facing stem-cell replacement, commonly known as bone marrow transplant, which is both risky and painful (stem-cell replacement is the atom bomb of chemotherapy where the doctors take you purposefully to the point of death, killing all the red and white platelets).
I stood with my wife in the center aisle of our church offering to Dana our prayerful concern and deep-seated anxiety. Her response to us was mind-altering. Calmly, she thanked us sincerely, and then said, "I know what I believe...now I get to see if I believe what I know."
I have in my hand two boxes
Which God gave me to hold;
He said, "Put all your sorrows in the black
And all your joys in the gold."
I heeded His words, and in the two boxes
Both my joys and sorrows I stored;
But though the gold became heavier each day
The black was as light as before.
With curiosity, I opened the black,
I wanted to find out why;
And I saw, in the base of the box,
A hole which my sorrows had fallen out by.
I showed the hole to God and mused aloud,
"I wonder where my sorrows could be?"
He smiled a gentle smile and said,
"My child, they're all here with me..."
I asked, "God, why give me boxes,
Why the gold, and the black with the hole?"
"My child, the gold is for you to count your blessings...
The black is for you to let go."
Incidentally, you should know that Dana came through the procedures with flying colors to everyone's amazement (except God's). She and her husband Chuck along with children Austin and Natalie are now in Tennessee attending Seminary, preparing for full-time ministry!
Thinking again about the TROUBLE TREE...the one in my yard will hold my trials until morning when I pick them up again. But there is another TROUBLE TREE in my life. It's a place where I can forever drop my problems. And so can you. Calvary still stands tall saying, "Whosoever will may come."
You have doubts... hang them on the tree.
Sins...hang them on the tree.
Discouragements...hang them on the tree.
Heartaches...hang them on the tree.
Misunderstandings...hang them on the tree.
Whatever holds you down or binds you up...hang them on the tree.
You can hold on to your resentments and
turmoils, or you can leave them at the cross.
It's your choice...take it or leaf it.
Back to Top
|
