LESSON FOCUS

THE VIEW FROM THE FRONT PORCH:

A CODEPENDENT'S JOURNEY

Front porches are for drinking cold sweet tea with family and friends on lazy Sunday afternoons and for giggling children swinging high on the old porch swing. When I was growing up, however, most houses had back porches as well, which were basically the poor country people's utility rooms. On our back porch, Mama washed loads of clothes on an old wringer washing machine and washed me in an aluminum tub. My grandma's back porch had a shelf on which was set a wash pan and, nearby, hanging on a nail, was a hand towel. Back porches always had buckets: buckets of water, buckets of peas and beans f or shelling, buckets of corn for shucking. William Carlos Williams wrote a very short imagistic poem about "so much depends on the red wheelbarrow," but I assert that so much depends on the buckets.

Without a bucket you cannot draw water from the well. The woman at the well told Jesus that he needed a bucket. ¹¹ "'Sir,' the woman said, 'you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?'" Jesus, of course, went on to remind her that she needed a different kind of bucket to hold the Living Water. Buckets are a part of our preparation, whether we are drawing water, gathering produce, or sitting in church, at a Bible study, or at a recovery meeting. The other night at Celebrate Recovery, I could see some who were there to seek God, and they went away with a full bucket to keep them on the road to recovery. Others, however, seemed to just show up. They were there perhaps because they were required to be there or because someone expected them to go, but they brought no buckets. For the most part, they were seeking nothing and went away with nothing.

God had some harsh words for His people who refused to trust in Him for their deliverance in Isaiah 30: " ¹² This is the reply of the Holy One of Israel: “Because you despise what I tell you and trust instead in oppression and lies, ¹³ calamity will come upon you suddenly . . . ¹⁴ You will be smashed like a piece of pottery—shattered so completely that there won’t be a piece big enough to carry coals from a fireplace or a little water from the well.” He notes that our "buckets" will be shattered if we refuse to trust in Him and we will have nothing in which to carry His blessings. He goes on to say, "Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it."

Serving God is serious business. If we play games with God, we will find no deliverance, no recovery, no direction. If we bring our empty buckets to Him, however, seeking more of Him, more of the Kingdom, we will leave with abundance.

Pat James

Failing Eyesight

                               

A man and wife exited a London subway to discover that their neighborhood was enveloped in the dense fog. Even by London standards, the fog was the thickest they'd ever seen. They wondered if it would be possible for them to even make it home through the familiar streets of their own neighborhood.

A stranger overheard their worried discussion and offered to take them home. They thanked him, but expressed doubt that he would be able to lead them to a house which they couldn't see and which he, a stranger, had never been to.

He replied: "Don't worry. I'm blind." And he proceeded to explain to them that he lived in their neighborhood and, because of his handicap, he had been forced to learn how to navigate through the streets and sidewalks of his town without the use of his eyes.

He related how that day had been joyous for him as he had been able to lead dozens of people home in the thick fog! Because he alone was not dependent on his eyesight, he was able to do something no one else could do.

I wonder: How many times do we as God's people speak the words, "I can't …" because we rely only on what our eyes tell us? Scripture tells us to trust God instead of leaning on our own discernment and insight (Proverbs 3:5).

A writer once described an eagle flying high among the mountain crags. Suddenly, a quick storm descends, and it seems for the moment that its fury will dash the eagle to death against the cliffs. But the eagle faces the storm, tilts his wings at a proper angle, and slowly the fury that might have crushed him instead begins to drive him upward, until at last he rises above the storm.

The very power that would have destroyed him became the power by which he reached a new serenity!

Our faith in God constitutes that "proper angle" of our wings. Without faith, the raging storms of life might destroy us. With faith, those same storms can miraculously drive us upward, and impart to us a richness and peace we might never have otherwise known.                              Jack Finegan

THINGS WE ARE NOT: