Moss on all Sides

Today I realized something as I read through the word and looked for something to jump out at me. I got to thinking about moss and how I never realized it until someone told me this last year but moss only grows on the north side of trees. I found that odd, but remarkably true in all the evidence I could find. As I drove down the street I looked out every few minutes and sure enough the moss was only on the north side of the trees. I am a pastor so don’t look to me to explain why this is true or what cause this to happen. But I can tell you a place where moss doesn’t only grow on the north side of the trees. Hilo Hawaii. I lived here for the first two years of my life, and that place is warm year round and wet year round. The trees there don’t know summer from winter or north from south, they just grow and the moss does the same covering not only the trees but all the rocks, and the sidewalks and anything else that stays in one place long enough. I want to be like the trees of Hilo rather than the trees that I see today. I want to be able to grow from anything that come my way, not just when the conditions are ideal. I don’t need to be in my room with soft monastic music playing to grow (For the record I have never done that and have no problem with those who do). I don’t even need to be in the word when I grow. I just need to be ready to grow at all times. God wants to do so much in me and through me, that I don’t want it to only happen in the winter on my north side. I want it from all avenues. I just want to grow.
Anyway several things did jump out at me but I felt writing about them would be nearly useless. I don’t mean to say that there wouldn’t have been some benefit to spending time writing and processing those scriptures, but I Just didn’t feel particularly inspired to write about any of them. Let me give you an example: I read Luke 5:11 which says, “They (the first few disciples) left everything they had and followed Jesus.” What an amazing verse, but the problem is that I have had other times in my life where that same verse, or possibly the ones like it in Matthew, jumped out and me and inspired me for the day. I am not saying that this can’t happen again with the same verse, or that we should only read the bible once through and be done with it. I am just saying that I didn’t want to have to feign passion. I am passionate about this verse don’t get me wrong, I am just not sure that there is an application for this passion in my life right now. The last thing I want to be in my journal is fake. It’s my journal man. This journal is to track my spiritual growth and it is online so that others can keep me accountable to grow spiritually. I don’t want to fake growth, because when I do I think I miss out on other kinds of growth, like the growth that is happening as I write this.
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Lord, help me to grow as I write in this journal. I pray that as I read scripture tomorrow, you would help me to passionately apply what you are showing me. I pray that you would mark my life with transparency, and that you would teach me from many aspects of my life – being a husband, a pastor, son a father, and scripture. Use any area of my life to grow me and humble me enough to grow. Be the center of my life.