May 31 - One Lonely Daisy

May 31 - One Lonely Daisy - 2 Timothy 4:9-22

Diane says:
"Timothy, please do everything you can to come to me." Paul says this twice in these last verses (2 Timothy 4:9, 21). He has had friends desert him and others leave for other reasons. Luke is still there and he asks for Mark. He wants a cloak. A simple need, yet something so personal to him. He wants his scrolls. No one knows for sure what was on those, but they meant something to this man sitting in prison for doing the Lord's work.

The pain of loss in these verses is palpable. Everything is gone, only his reliance on the Lord remains. People are moving on with their lives while Paul faces the end of his. How do you finish a life that has been lived like a raging volcano? How does one man ever close out all of the work that he has done when his life has been lived in many cities and among many, many people?

Paul's comfort is spoken in 2 Timothy 4:18, "The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen."

So be it. Amen.

Rebecca says:
These last few verses in Timothy have a subtitle in my Bible - 'Personal Remarks.' In these verses Paul is not an apostle or a martyr or a mentor. He is a man of flesh and bone just like the rest of us and this part of Paul is what I relate to the best.

Here you can feel his humanity. All of his wisdom and teaching is set aside and we get a very pure glimpse into his heart and hear the loneliness, disappointment and the hope that exists in his world.

Paul was isolated. We all experience this at some time or another, sometimes it is just for a moment, yet sometimes entire seasons are spent away from the world where it seems you cannot find a friend within a 20 mile radius. Though I tend to be a bit of a hermit, those seasons are still difficult. It's easy to feel deserted. Paul was alone and let down by so many people in this list and that is such a painful disappointing pang to the soul.

We all have felt it haven’t we? Those times that our phone is silent, our inbox is empty and every friend you have seems too busy to care or notice. I hate those times and a few years back they caused me a great deal of anger. During my period of isolation I could not see anything except the growing list of people that let me down during my time of need.

It was at that time that I fully started to embrace the verse in Isaiah 40:6 "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field." Men are a continual let down, people in general have very short attention spans, few are even aware of people they coexist with let alone some girl down the road with a heavy heart. We all are generally wrapped up in our own lives and only experience seasons where we are selfless, or feel on top of our scripture study or charitable service etc. But sure enough life seems to get in the way or our flesh becomes louder than our spirit and suddenly we are the Demas and Alexanders of our friend’s worlds. I cannot tell you how angry I used to get over this when it was done to me, or when I realized I had done it to someone else.

But then I went back and finished reading that verse in Isaiah and verse 7 changed my perspective. "The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breathe of the LORD blows on them."

That kind of threw me for a loop when I read it the first time. I was prepared to pout and get good and angry at the people that let me down and suddenly the brakes were put on my pity party plan. I couldn’t get angry at the people for disappointing me or not calling or reaching out for being little feeble weak pieces of grass because they did not wither of their own accord, they withered because the LORD blew on them.

He toppled them, he distracted them, and he kept them from calling me, or reaching out, or sending an email. He kept their focus off me and in their own worlds and so if I was going to be mad and yell at anyone it was going to be God and that was just what He intended.

The more and more this happens to me the more and more I realize that in seasons when I am all alone and God has trampled the grassy field of friends in my life it is because He has a deep desire for some one on one time with me. He loves us so much and if in our hearts we truly desire a connection with Him, he will honor that desire at all costs even if it means blowing a few flowers and grass blades away in our life so we are a lone daisy in an acre prairie. Isolation is a gift because our Holy Father desires some alone time with us and he wants to hear the words in our heart, even if those words begin with us yelling at him because we are so lonely or disappointed or sad. He wants to hear it because it is sincere and suddenly the dialogue is opened and He gets to commune with His child and reconnect.

This word isolation has this terrible connotation attached to it in today’s world. We will do anything to avoid it. In our cars we listen to radios, or talk on phones. In our homes we have TVs going or sit on computers just to avoid the quiet. We schedule our lives to the point of no return because somehow we have become a world that cannot stand quiet. Because of that, God creates isolation in the lives of the busy or distracted as a gift of love.

During these times it seems to cause the boil that brings truth to the surface in my life. It is easy when there are other voices to become content listening to them rather than that Divine internal whisper. Sometimes during this period what rises to the surface is uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that it is easier to just silence it with busyness. But I have also learned to embrace even these uncomfortable moments because God is a jealous God who loves His children so thoroughly that He will do whatever it takes to get some alone time.

He will begin with the us, and then if we still don’t take a moment to commune, slowly the distractions will become silenced, then jobs that take up our time, or callings that keep us away from Him. I am convinced that if we do not embrace isolation then desolation is soon to follow - not as a punishment, but because God is desperate to be with His children. When we are unemployed, we have no job to distract us from His grace, when we are broke, we have no money to do all those activities that fill up our day to day and keep us from His whisper. When we are going and going and going, an injury will stop us and finally settle us down enough that we can rest in His arms.

When you are the lone daisy in a barren field and no grass is around to comfort you, it is then that you realize that God is no blade of grass, He is the dirt that anchors your roots tightly so you don’t fail. He is the water that keeps you blooming even when it seems you can’t, He is the stem that holds you up, and He is the light that helps you grow. Sure a luscious grassy lawn seems to be the cat’s meow but sometimes during some seasons a nice rock garden is just what the doctor ordered!