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THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER VOLUME 7, NUMBER 27, JULY 8, 2007 KNOCKED DOWN, BUT NOT OUT I have two windows in my office. Outside of the one that my desk faces is a little fir tree that we were required to plant as part of the landscaping. I have enjoyed watching that little tree and it has given me the ideas to launch several other articles. A few weeks ago someone, I suspect it was kids attending a graduation party that one of our neighbors was having, decided to break off the top third of that little tree. The part that was broken off was just thrown to the ground. When I saw my little buddy so badly damaged I ran outside to check on him, only to discover that the same malicious act of vandalism had been performed on at least two other little fir trees. In each case the broken top was simply left lying on the ground. This may sound silly to you, but I was truly saddened to see what had been done. I was looking forward to many years of watching that tree grow. I wanted to see it withstand the spring storms and the summer heat. I wanted to watch it grow large enough that snow would rest upon its branches. I found it somehow grounding and encouraging to know that that little tree would be here long after I was gone. I thought that because it had been so damaged it would surely died, but someone who knows more about trees and shrubbery than I told me that was not necessarily so. Just because that tree was damaged doesn’t mean that it cannot come all the way back. Isn’t that the way it is spiritually as well? Just because we may stumble and fall in our spiritual journey does not mean that we cannot get up and come all the way back. Just because something happens that makes us feel damaged, maybe even as though a part of us has been broken off, doesn’t mean that we have to stay that way and cannot grow to our full potential. We can stumble and fall, we can sustain some significant spiritual damage and yet, depending on our attitude and willingness to repent, come all the way back and grow even beyond where we were. Several individuals in the New Testament come to mind as examples of this very thing. I think of Peter and some of the statements he made to Jesus on the very night that our Lord was betrayed. In Matthew 26:33-35 we find, “Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples.” That was quite a statement by Peter, and one that I am certain he was absolutely confident in at the time, “Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee.” Not too many hours later, Peter was saying concerning Jesus, “I do not know the man!” Luke 22:60-62 tells us, “And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew. And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.” I don’t know how much further a person could fall, how much more damage could be done spiritually, than to deny even a passing acquaintance with the Lord in the hour of greatest need. As Peter went out and wept bitterly, I suspect he might have felt a bit like a fir tree with the top brutally torn off. There was his arrogance and pride laying right at his feet. But Peter came all the way back. We even find the Lord saying to him in John 21:15-17, “Feed my lambs,” “Feed my sheep,” and “Feed my sheep.” Peter would announce the Gospel Plan of Salvation in Acts 2 and he would open the door of the kingdom to the Gentiles, by doing the same thing with Cornelius and his household in Acts 10. Just because a person is down and damaged spiritually doesn’t mean he or she has to stay that way. In the Gospel of Mark we find a most interesting event in 14:51-52. This was the very same night upon which Peter denied the Lord. The location in Mark 14 was the Garden of Gethsemane and this is what we find, “And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.” Most scholars believe that young man to have been none other than John Mark, the penman of the gospel. Later, in Acts 13, we find Paul and Barnabas taking John Mark with them on their first evangelistic journey. He would depart from them before the journey was completed. The reason for his departure is not given, but Paul was certainly not pleased with it. In fact, when it became time for them to go on their second journey, Barnabas wanted Mark to go with them, but Paul refused. How much more spiritually damaged can you be than to run away from the Lord and to have the apostle Paul say, “I don’t want him to go with me”? But Mark came back. First of all, he came back from having deserted the Lord to accompany Paul and Barnabas in the initial stages of that first journey. Later, he would come back from his previous failure to the point where the older Apostle Paul referred to him as a fellow worker and co-laborer in the gospel of Christ. I hope that little broken fir tree grows strong and tall, home for the birds and a stalwart survivor of years of storms and the blistering heat of summer. Just because it is broken now doesn’t mean it has to die and just because a person may be spiritually broken doesn’t mean he has to stay that way. Greg Litmer |