Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right path. 

Proverbs 3:5-6

There's a path back there, there really is.  It winds around the little peninsula and flows into quiet, tree-lined stream curling around the back of the lake.  It's almost impossible to see until your just on it.  At least three times I tried to find it, muttering to myself the patient instructions given again at the shore, and running aground yet again on the mudflats of one more wrong turn.  

At least a dozen times I've been through it now.  I still remember the shock of the first time I finally made the right series of turns and the trees suddenly opened up to reveal the wide slow stream.  Even now I still feel that tightening of apprehension as I paddle toward that wall of trees.  Did I take the wrong turn?  Am I really going to find it this time?  It just looks like its going to deadened up here.

Then suddenly there it is; peaceful and shady, another kayak or two, an occasional fisherman, the distant murmur walkers on the trail above.  The path is suddenly clear, the directions make sense.  How could it have ever been that hard?

There are so many walls in the trails of our lives, so many deceptive mudflats.  We stumble forward, rehearsing the directions, wondering how there could possibly be a path back there.  What joy in those moments, when at least for an instant, the tangled trail unwinds into a peaceful open stream.

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

I've been trying to grow morning glories on my back porch trellis for three years.  Squirrels got them one year, to the delight of the falsely accused cat.  Another was just too late and too hot and they never went anywhere.  This year I was determined.  I started visiting nurseries on the first warm weekend in spring and was told to come back in May.  Two more visits and tantalizing rows of endless varieties of 

spring blooms at last netted me three sturdy plants I was assured would quickly consume my trellis.

I forgot to ask the definition of quickly.  

It was a rather discouraging prospect.  There were no blooms on these plants like the rows of offerings I had wandered blissfully through before finally asking for help.  They looked quite spindly next to the trellis when I planted them.  The previous year, when I had tried to start them from seeds, I had plant boxes stuffed with tender shoots.  Of course they had all died before reaching the bottom of the trellis, so it seemed best to follow directions anyway.

For weeks, there seemed to be little progress.  The three plants shot straight up.  I wound them diligently along the trellis as they grew.  Somedays, they even seemed to wind themselves.  

But they didn't branch out to cover the trellis, and they didn't show the least sign of blooming.  

A week and a half of summer travel, a week and a half of leaving them to the tender mercies of my twenty-six year old son, I returned to find they'd finally reached the top.  With no where else to go, they  started winding their way back down again, finally beginning to cover more area.  Even better, tiny buds were now visible, a promise of beautiful flowers to come.  

One perfect blossom appeared at the top of the trellis one morning, a joy through the day before it withered in the heat by late afternoon.  I eagerly watched the same spot for more, checking the blooms, fretting over watering, willing an explosion of color to form across within the leaves.  Nothing happened.  

I sat on my swing one morning, poking at the dirt and wondering if they needed more water or less, when I finally saw it.  Low on the vine, almost hidden by the leaves and the trellis, another beautiful nearly formed blossom.  I teased it gently out into the open and found more just behind it.  Tiny buds, hiding shyly, trailing up and across the vine, waiting their moment to burst into color.  

Blessing of God, growing just out of view, hidden until I take the time to look. 

... for every animal of the forest is Mine,

the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know every bird of the mountains,

and the creatures of the field are Mine.

Psalm 50: 10 - 11

The cattle, the corn, the trail, and this glorious day.  The second of a two day bike trail ride; the sun is high, but the breeze still cool.  The scenery melts from farmland to river to forest.  Though an occasional airplane passes over, there's not a hint of the constant city background roar of traffic.  

Peace; 

       beauty;

                 living senses;

                            open heart.

  He doesn't need us, but He loves us.  

          He doesn't owe us, but He gifts us.

A day to glory in stunning gallery of His work.

I lie down and sleep,

I wake again

because the Lord sustains me.

I am not afraid of the thousands of people

who have taken their stand against me on every side.

Psalm 3:5-6

A feather bed on a battlefield.
            With the Lord as his encompassing shield,
                           David could lie down in complete faith.  

I don't think he even knew if he would wake up again the next morning.  It just didn't matter anymore.  He looked out on the angry throngs around him,
                                      he heard their jeering threats,
                                                  he cried out to the only one above the reach of their weapons.

The charge of his desperate prayer?
                         Not a strategy for battle
                                        or a plan for escape,
                                             not a promise of great victory tomorrow,
                               
just sleep.

         Lie down,
                      relax,
                           rest in the faith
                                        of the one
                                                who holds you in his hands.

Katy Trail Milepost 35

He is like a tree 

planted beside streams of water 

that bears its fruit in season

and

whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

Psalm 1:3

In the almost quiet on a gravely trail, a bench sits silent before a tiny lagoon.  The water pools gently here as the wide Missouri lumbers on.  The trees along its edges curl forward sucking eagerly at its life-giving flow.  Lush and strong and green they thrive resting in the gifts of God. 

His word the waters of my soul; waiting, longing to sustain me, if I'm only wise enough to rest like the tree in the endless nourishing flow.

I wait for the Lord

more than the watchmen for the morning --

more than the watchmen for the morning.

Psalm 130:6

In the depths of a moonless night, a watchman stands tense, alert to every sound.  A rustle of brush, the crack of a twig could be a frightened mouse scurrying for cover; or an advancing army creeping toward the city.  

He longs for light, for vision, for the flood of information revealed by the dawn.  A battle to plan or an embarrassed laugh of relief, anything is better than the coiled spring of wondering, of waiting for what can't be seen.

Waiting for the Lord. Waiting for the light.  Living in the longing for the dawning glow that illuminates the truth of all that commotion stumbling through the night.

I waited patiently for the Lord,

and He turned to me

and heard my cry for help.

Psalm 40:1

Deep in the mists of longer ago than I want to imagine, I woke up every morning to a pair of tiny blue eyes peering over the edge of my bed.  The red headed toddler in a diaper and a trailing  "daddy shirt" didn't make a sound as he crept into my room.

He didn't cry or call out or tug at my arm as he waited.  He just stared in silence until I opened my eyes, then solemnly announced, "Cheerios".  My teasing prodding for  a hello,  a good morning,  an I love you mommy, netted me only a ornery grin and a firm repetition of "Cheerios".

In the innocent faith of a child, he stood in perfect patience.  He held no doubts that my eyes would open, that I would laugh at his antics, that I would get up and get him the breakfast he wanted.

David stood too with his eyes on God, expectant, confident, at least for that moment, that all that he needed was there, poised to be delivered.