Renew my Spirit, Refresh my Soul & Give Strength to my Physical Body

We learn so much from those first few verses in John. Again, John conclusively stated Jesus is in fact God – fully God. Not simply a man, or angel or some other formed being. We can go down a whole other path here on the trinity, but I just want to focus on God and Jesus as one being, the creator of all things. If we want to see Him, feel Him and be refreshed through Him, we need to look outside. To have a better understanding of God’s character we need to connect with His creation—both His planet and His people. Obviously, during this time of solitude we have been missing the ‘His people’ part, but He is giving us an opportunity to explore His earth and connect deeper with His nature.  Friends, just go outside! Take a walk barefoot, feel the breeze, touch the dirt (it won’t hurt!) and sit in His silence outside.

Here Jesus said a fig tree, not just a tree. Jesus is a storyteller and the details matter. This summer (into fall time) my kids discovered the wonderful fruit of fig. They would come inside with their shirts full! Levi would eat them all day long! Every morning he would get up and run straight out the door, not stopping to put shoes on and climb up in our fig trees to see if we had anymore fruit ripen over night. Before quarantine, I knew we had fig trees (well I was pretty sure we did), but I had never taken the time to walk over and look up into the trees. They have fairly short trunks (or no trunks at all) so you have to duck down and get under them. The few on the side yard look like giant bushes. On the playground side of the house, our fig trees are bigger with more room to explore under the leaves. The leaves are big and distinctive. They can grow up to 10 inches long and 5 inches wide with each leaf having a deeply lobed shape. Each leaf can have between three and five lobes per leaf. This shape is described as a palmate because it looks similar to an open hand. We had these beautiful trees all around our yard that produced this wonderful fruit yet none of us knew their beauty until we took the time to go look. Many years ago, my friend and I were driving down Summer Ave. I was driving and she was in the passenger seat. All of a sudden, with such excitement she says, “Stop the car!” Luckily, I didn’t run right into the giant tree beside us. She hops out, runs over to the tree and came back with handfuls of figs. I would have passed right by, but she noticed the beauty of that fig tree and with such enthusiasm and joy. Because of my experience and deeper connection with fig trees, I can now see the beautiful picture Jesus is painting here. I see Nathanael sitting with his back up against the tree, hidden by the large fig leaves. To a typical person strolling by, he would have been missed, but Jesus used these words to reassure Nathanael that He knew who he was! From that Nathanael declares, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel,” vs. 49. I finished up in my reading for today with chapter 3. God used verse 8 to bring out a prayer in me. John 3:8 says,

I am drained everyday. I lose who I am and what I even enjoy doing in the noise of chores, days old leggings, messy hair, too big for my face glasses, kid’s baths and constant screaming in the house. But, it amazes me every time I sit down with God, whether five minutes or 30, how much I feel better. I just have to make it a priority.  So friends, take your Bible, go outside to read and then just sit and listen. You will be surprised what you hear, feel and see.