Tenacious

In these retirement years I have come to a place where I am prone to put words in the mouth of things that have no mouth, things that have no voice, and were never meant to speak.  Now, it is true that I do not hear voices, but it does sometimes seem that the trees have around here have things to say.  Or, maybe, the voice I hear comes from the running water in the branch, or a limb which has fallen in the wind, or the cows grazing out in the pasture.  More recently, I have been listening to the sandspurs.

 

The sandspur is such a tiny thing.  It is a prickly thing.  It is a first class hitch hiker.  It is the epitome of tenacious.  Tenacious is the word I keep hearing as I pull them off of my jeans and the laces of my boots.  Tenacious is the word I keep hearing as I put on clothes that have been through the washer and the dryer only to find a sandspur hanging on tightly in the fabric.  Tenacious is the word I hear when those hidden washed and dried sandspurs stick me unexpectedly.  Sandspurs stick.  Sandspurs do not turn loose.  They hang on no matter what they have to go through to hang on.

 

It seems that the tiny sandspur has a lesson for those of who are faith walkers with Jesus.  There are times when life sends us through the washer and dryer cycle and spits us out frayed around the edges and wrinkled and the first thing we want to do is to abandon our faith in Christ.  There have been too many times when the hard circumstances have caused us to turn loose of our faith for a day, or maybe even a season of our life.  What we need is a tenacious faith, one that hangs on regardless of the things swirling around us.  The Word of God speaks of that kind of faith in the life of the Apostle Paul as we hear him saying, "...forgetting what lies behind an straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."  (Philippians 3:13-14)  Hang on.  Do not...do not...do not ever let go!   Tenacious is the word!