Let the Rosebud Bloom in Its Own Time

Let the Rosebud Bloom in Its Own Time

by Jo Kimmel Chestnut

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Jesus, we praise and thank You that You have allowed Your Spirit to fall afresh on us this morning. Thank You for the radiant sunlight. Thank You for the sunlight in our souls. Sunlight that You’ve been nurturing ever since we’ve been here at this camp. Thank You that You’re taking us farther and farther out with You. That we’re learning to trust You more completely. To know You’re utterly trustworthy. And that Your will is the best will for our lives. So make us willing to be willing that our will might be Your will. And all the people said, “Amen, Amen, and Amen.” Which reminds me, excuse me, which reminds me when I do any sort of prayer workshops in my own congregation. I have one dear Baptist minister’s wife, who is now a member of a Congregational church, who says, “I will not say Amen three times. I will say Amen once.” And she gives a little twinkle smile as she does it. And it’s really delightful. But you know, we do sort of get accustomed to things. And people have asked me at various times, you know, “Why use the threefold Amen?” And I say, “Well, I’m just saying to the Lord, I mean it, Lord. I really mean it. I really do mean it. And I’m just releasing it then into His hands.”

So be it, type of thing. And if you feel uncomfortable saying it three times, don’t say it three times. Get a twinkle in your eye and say it once the way you want to. I think too often we try to make things too rigid for one another. We find a good way to do something. And we think that’s the only way to do it then. And God’s so much bigger than any concept that we have of Him. And I think when I was in college I read J.B. Phillips’ little book, Your God Is Too Small. And he had asked a radio audience, did they think God understood electronics or something? I don’t know. And the response had been they didn’t think He did.

He tried to stretch people to get them to realize that our finite minds really can’t encompass the infinite mind of God. We can never plumb His depths. Nor can we ever do that with one another. Nor can we ever really know what’s going on inside another person. I stand up here and I look at you and I think, “My goodness, you don’t have a problem in the world.” You know? And I’m so wrong. And you look at me and you think, “She doesn’t have a problem in the world.” And you’re so wrong. We’re all in process of becoming. And we should realize that and not get impatient with one another if someone else isn’t as far along as we are. I see our journey as many different stages. And I don’t see any better than any other. I see them just as different. And as I know where you are in your journey and you know where I am, we can bless one another and leave each other free to be where we are. Have you ever seen a rosebud that you tried to force open into a bloom? It just doesn’t work. And the same way it is, the kingdom within us is unfolding. And sometimes we want to pry other people’s petals loose before they’re ready to be pried loose.

So I want to share some passages of scripture with you this morning. Because they’re, to me, very meaningful. And maybe they will be to you. And if you would like to, feel free to close your eyes as you listen to these.

As therefore God’s picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God Himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind, accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And above everything else, be truly loving. For love is the golden chain of all the virtues. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, remembering that as members of the one body, you’re called to live in harmony. And never forget to be thankful for what God has done for you. Accept life with humility and patience, making allowances for one another because you love one another. Make it your aim to be at one in the Spirit, and you will inevitably be at peace with one another.

Live together in harmony. Live together in love, as though you had only one mind and one spirit between you. Never act from motives of rivalry or personal vanity, but in humility. Think more of one another than you do of yourselves. None of you should think only of his own affairs, but each should learn to see things from other people’s point of view. Be keener than ever to work out the salvation that God’s given you with a proper sense of awe and responsibility. For it’s God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve His purpose. Do all you have to do without grumbling or arguing, so that you may be God’s children, blameless, sincere, and wholesome, living in a warped and diseased world, and shining there like light in a dark place.

I think it would be good sometimes to take the Bible just by ourselves and read it out loud. Somehow, you get a different perspective on it when you hear yourself reading it or you really listen to someone else reading it. There are tremendous words of life and vitality that are a part of this. And we don’t get it if we just try to skim through quickly. I know some people who’ve read the Bible through, I don’t know, oodles of times, but they don’t know really what’s in the Bible because they’ve never taken a passage and just lived with it and tried to see if they could enflesh that in their own beings.

I have shared with the prayer group that I’m in one of the ways in which I try to allow God to flow into and out through me. And the first little thing I do is simply relax my jaws. Nobody even knows I’m doing it.

And I feel sort of a yawn in the back of my throat. Jackal like that. That’s what he wants his singers to do. Have an open throat. Because you see, here is an area of tension. One of the first places is right here. We tighten up. And if we relax, I could say, “You stupid idiot.” And you wouldn’t believe me. See, if my throat is open and I’m relaxed, I cannot say hurtful, harsh things in a way which others would believe I mean to be hurtful and harsh.

And so one of the first things that we need to learn to do is to let go right in here. You might want to just practice that all through the day today. I had ample opportunity to practice this when my girls were small. Because when Ted died, they were 6, 8, and 10. And I had the sole responsibility for them. And I had been the type of mother that said, “Pick up the toys. Do this. Do that. See that this gets done.” And Ted was the one that enjoyed the children. Told them stories and played games with them. And after he died, the Lord showed me I had to be different. I had to show that warm side to the children more consistently than I had been doing. So one of the ways He taught me not to react immediately was to make myself keep from speaking and just relax my jaws, and then begin to breathe slowly and deeply and regularly.

And when you do that, you don’t get hot under the collar. You don’t get angry. Just the physical doing of it helps you. Have you ever been in a situation maybe with a member of the opposite sex who really turned you on and it wasn’t appropriate?

Relax your jaws. Breathe deeply. It works. The old juices begin to die down. And they know you’re in charge and that God’s in charge of you. As I was thinking about my daughters and my relationship, I think we’ve had a very healthy relationship.

I figured that I might die at any time. Ted had died. I could die at any time. One of the things I wanted to do was help my children not depend only on me, but to have a relationship with Jesus who’d be with them all the time, who’d never leave them or forsake them. And so early on, when I was teaching at Manchester College and the girls were small and we’d just come back from Madagascar, I would go to Fort Wayne and stay overnight at a motel having someone come in and stay with my children and then I would return the next day. And I did this over a period of weeks so that they could see that I could go away and I would come back. Their daddy had gone away but he hadn’t come back. And they needed to be weaned to this idea that mother could go away and could come back. And then I went for a weekend and I came back. And another weekend I went away and I came back. And they began to get the idea that they could free me. That I could go and I could return. And in this way I helped them ease into a situation where then I might go away for a week at a time and come back.

And then in 1968 I was away for six weeks and went around the world studying prayer and healing. And I had a college girl who had just finished her degree in family life in the home economics department who took care of my children during that six weeks. And I think I missed them more than they missed me.

But I was aware of these things within them and I tried to ease it for them the best I could. I tried to recognize their needs as well as my own. Now I know some mothers who never go away and leave their children. Never. And they think they’re really loving their children. And they may be. But they may be smothering their children too. We need distances between us. Khalil Gibran again speaks of this in his book The Prophet. How we need these spaces between us and how he talks about our children really not being our children, but they’re like arrows shot out of our bow. And too often we want to bind others to us whether they’re our children or a husband or a wife or a parent. And we need to learn how to free other people and be free and not allow other people to bind us.

And that isn’t easy to do because we like our security blanket and that person who is our security blanket we want them there when we want them there. And we grumble and we argue if they want to go out a little farther on the leash than we want to let them out.

Early on I learned that each of my children was totally different from the other and I had to act and react in different ways with each one. Fran, for instance, the oldest child, when I wanted to say something to her that I really meant I would take her by the arm and I’d look her straight in the eye and I’d just tell her out flat what it was because that’s the way she got the message. If I did that to Kay, Kay would have dissolved into tears. So I had to use a different approach with her and a different one with Susan. And we just can’t, you know, let it all hang out the way we think it ought to hang out of us and see whether or not others will accept that or not. The scripture has told us we need to learn to live in harmony with each other. And that’s a deliberate choice. I can choose to be in harmony with you or I can choose not to be. Do you ever see the book Happiness Is a Choice? By two psychiatrists, Christian psychiatrists in Richardson, Texas, Minirth and Meier. Happiness is a choice.

Nobody can make you happy. Nobody can make you happy. And you see, part of our culture is this person is going to make me happy. This is why I want to spend the rest of my life with this person because this person is making me happy now and he or she will always make me happy all the time. I am in the center. I am in the… Everything revolves around me and my happiness. But that isn’t the way life is. And that isn’t why I think we’re here on earth. To have everything revolve around us. And I think there has to come a time in which we are displaced from the center. Not that we’re annihilated. No. Not that we’re erased. No. But that we choose to move aside and let someone who is wiser come in and live within us and check with Him about things. When the girls would want to do something when they were little, my first reaction was no.

And it would often come out that way. And I found out I had to stop. I had to say, “Well, let’s pray about it. Let’s pray the increase-decrease prayer. See what God wants.” And so we would pray, “God, if Kay is to do this and so, increase the desire within us for her to do it. If she’s not to do it, then decrease the desire.” And we had to be willing, you see, that it go either way. And that’s the prayer I use probably the most in my life is the increase-decrease prayer.

I was going to the Holy Land one time. I’d already sent in a nice big deposit to go. And I thought, maybe I ought to check this out with the Lord. Surely He’ll want me to go to the Holy Land again. He knows how wonderful it is for me to be over there and how I enjoy it. I’m drawn closer to Him while I’m there. And as I checked it out and prayed the increase, decrease, decreased for me to go, and I said, “God, is there someone You want to go in my stead that could use the down payment and maybe a little more from me in order to go. If so, increase the desire within me for the person You want to go in my stead.”

And He increased it for the minister and his wife at the church where I was. And so I talked to my little prayer group and told them what I was experiencing. And they felt led to contribute to the couple going to the Holy Land. And by the time it was time for them to go, because they were delighted to be invited and they got their guidance to go, we had enough to send them in a little purse along beside with some extra money in it so they could buy some treasures while they were in the Holy Land. And if you haven’t been to the Holy Land, I really recommend it. People say, “There are people in the world that are starving and that I can give that money to.” And that’s true. But you pray about it and maybe God would say, “Well, I have somebody else that’s going to take care of those for that amount of money that you would spend on going to the Holy Land.” God, because it truly is a marvelous experience.

When we flew one time with about 30 people to Cairo, we did Egypt in a day, which is ridiculous. And then we did Jordan in about a day and a half. And when we got to Mount Nebo and we looked out over the promised land and we sang, “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God, our Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not. Thy compassions, they fail not. As Thou hast been, so Thou shalt be. Great is Thy faithfulness.” And there wasn’t a dry eye in the whole group because we went through the history of the Hebrews moving out of bondage and going and seeing that promised land from Mount Nebo where we were. And every time we had an opportunity, we read scripture and we prayed and we sang. And it was beautiful. We were down in a convent. We had to go downstairs and to get to the street level where Jesus was scourged. And in these great stones in the street was carved a crown and the soldiers played a game called something like the crown of kings. And that’s what gave them the idea, they say, to crown Jesus with the crown of thorns. And then on the wall is a full-size mosaic of Jesus carrying the cross on His back.

And as I looked at that, it just went to my heart what He went through. And we sang together, “You are Lord, You are Lord, You have risen from the dead and You are Lord. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that You, Jesus Christ, are Lord.” And then as we went on, we finally went to the Mount of Olives and the Church of All Nations there, which is just beautiful. And inside is the rock where Jesus is supposed to have knelt in the garden and prayed, “Not My will, but Thine be done.” And ringing around this rock is a large wrought iron railing about so high that’s in the shape of a thorn crown. And as I knelt there, it came over me, what have I ever really, really given up in my life? And Jesus gave His all. And again, it just went straight to my heart. And I knew that there wasn’t anything in my life that I couldn’t give up if I needed to.

Even my own life, I would lay it down. And then when we went to the garden tomb, and we saw that empty tomb, we had communion there. It was one of the greatest communions because we had these little olive wood chalices that are about this tall. Each one of us had them, and we had the local bread, and we broke bread and ate it together, feeding by faith with thanksgiving in our hearts on Jesus Christ, and then taking the communion cups and toasting the Lord for what He’d done for us and was in the process of doing and would do in the future, and then we drank together after we toasted Him. Fantastic experience.

It began to make me see how petty my own life was when I began to get a perspective of His life. And I knew that He could help me in all the things, and particularly in personal relationships, particularly with my own children that I lived with day in and day out. And I had ample opportunity to practice relaxing my jaws and breathing deeply and slowly and evenly, and then just picturing I was like a crystal pipe letting God’s love flow into and out through me to them. Not having to say anything to get back at them or to stem their criticism if they happen to be critical in the moment, but just to take it and let it pass on through as this living water flowed through me to them. It confounds your enemies when you refuse to fight back. Something begins to happen in them when you refuse to fight back and when you’re willing to turn that other cheek and go that second mile and give the cloak as well as your coat. Resist not evil. Agree quickly with your adversary. Disarm them.

Enchant them. Live together in harmony. Live together in love as far as it is possible. As the skit showed last night, we are not responsible for other people’s reactions to us ultimately. That’s their choice. That’s their decision. I’ve often thought that if someone came at me in extreme anger, ready to kill me, I would do everything short of killing him or her. But I couldn’t kill another human being. I’d rather be killed than to kill another person.

I don’t think my life is that important that the world can’t do without me. And maybe in my dying, that other person will be redeemed. When Stephen was stoned, there began something in Paul. Paul, who raged and burned with righteous indignation against these upstart Christians, his own brothers and sisters in the Hebrew faith, he went out to slaughter them. But something happened by that witness of Stephen.

I want to be a Stephen. I want to be a Peter, a later Peter, Peter that had been infused with the Holy Spirit wherever he walked, and his shadow fell, people were healed. He didn’t even have to reach out and touch them and say, “Be healed in the name of Jesus.” He was just so full of Jesus that Jesus just radiated out even through his shadow. When it fell on people, they were healed.

Clothes that had touched Peter, laid on other people, healed them. I’m awful far away from being at that point. But there’s a possibility, isn’t there, because Peter did it. But he really didn’t do it, did he? Jesus did it through him. And that’s where we need to give up trying to do and just be content to be. And allow Him to animate us and show us what to do and how to do it. But we’re so impatient, aren’t we? We want what we want when we want it the way we want it, don’t we?

And if we could have it yesterday, it would have been even better than having to wait for it in the next few minutes. Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, how He yearns to let His Spirit fall upon us, melt us, mold us, fill us, use us. As long as there’s so much of us there, He can’t get through. We block Him. The great God of the whole universe who set everything in order to begin with, who creates and recreates, can be stymied by you and me. We block Him. And I’m just at the point in my own life, I’m willing to give up anything, do anything, just so His Spirit can have free access to me and work His will out through me. And it may mean pain and suffering for me. Somebody said, we learn in at least two ways. One is through pain and suffering and the other is through insight. If I have my druthers, I’ll take the insight. Some people can’t stand that. You know, the religious people around Jesus couldn’t stand that. That was one of the reasons that they wanted to get rid of Him. Because when they saw Him and the purity and the glory and the power of His life, they saw their own emptiness. And it was easier for them to get rid of Him than it was for them to repent, turn around, and change.

And so we’ll come up against opposition leading this life, but that’s okay. What was it Ann said? Was that yesterday? “So it hurts. So what? It only hurts for a minute until you pass it on through. Then Jesus has it and you don’t. And you praise and thank Him that He’s taking care of it.” See, it is a moment-by-moment walk in the Spirit. And we’re so geared to instant potatoes and instant pudding and we don’t even like to stand in line over here for our meals.

Well, use the line as a time to practice relaxing your jaws, breathing deeply, letting God’s love flow through you. When someone’s pounding on the piano and hits the same note 50 million times, relax your jaws, breathe deeply. You don’t have to get upset. You can if you want. But I’ve learned I don’t want to. It does bad things in my body.

And I don’t want that. I want to be whole. And one of the things I do as I travel around the country and share with people in prayer workshops is to teach us how to relax. How to picture Jesus with us until He becomes real.

And then what to do. Some of the ways in which to respond in situations. I remember so well when I was in college reading Frank Laubach’s book, You Are My Friends. Understand it’s been reissued in the last few years. Beautiful book. I fell in love with Jesus as a college girl reading that.

And as I would walk from the campus to the Methodist Church where I was a youth director on weekends, I would picture Jesus walking beside me and in my mind I’d talk with Him. And I’d talk in my mind back what He said or what I thought He said. And I practiced this a lot. And one day, I didn’t have to imagine His presence. He was there. See, using imagery like this, picturing Jesus is like priming a pump. See in the old pumps where you have to pour water in first and then pump like the dickens to get the water to come up? Well, that’s what the imagery, imagining Jesus can do. It can prime our pump to become aware to His presence with us.

And we need practice. And so, I help people learn how and become eager to practice. Who was it? Wasn’t it Paderewski that said if he missed four days of practice? No, one day of practice, he knew it. If he missed two days, his wife knew it. If he missed three days, his audience knew it. Well, if we’re not practicing the presence of God, we’ll know it. And then if we continue not to practice His presence, those closest around us will know it. And then if we continue not to practice His presence, the wider community around us will know it.

And so, as a discipline, just as a discipline, to begin with, we take time every day to have our quiet time, to get quiet, to drain out any of the negative things within us and to be filled with Him. And to start our day reading scripture, praying, offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to God for that day. And then we go through the day knowing the renewing of our minds in Him from time to time. And it transforms our days. You think you never have a good day?

You think it’s somebody else’s fault? If only he or she would be different, you’d have a good day? If only you didn’t have to do this, that or the other, you’d have a good day? If you were centered in the Lord, if you knew He lived within you, there would be something going out from you, just naturally and normally. I see so many Christians trying to be good and to love this person. “I’m going to love that person if it kills me” and it probably will. You know? If you continue in that vein. But it’s so important to have a time. And personally, I like early morning, but I know a man who is vice president of an insurance company. And he takes a noon hour when he fasts every day at noon. Lost a little weight that way, too, which he didn’t mind. And I know another man who has a very responsible position, who when he comes home at night, kisses his wife and children and goes to the study for half an hour. And that’s his quiet time. We need to find the time that’s suitable for us. There was a time in my life I spent three hours of a morning getting up that early before I went to school.

Three hours. Three hours. We can find the time if we really want to. And what treasures we can begin to mine within us. And how our relationships will change because we have a changed attitude. And we’ll have understanding for those other persons that we live with. That goes beyond our finite minds. And helps us, at any rate, to live in harmony with them, whether they live in harmony with us or not. And somehow you never get to that point of, “Man, am I tired of living in harmony.”

“The other person ought to exert a little energy and try to live in harmony with me.” No, you move beyond that. Maybe through that. To a point where it doesn’t matter what other people do or say to you. You are going to live in harmony with them in as much as you can. Close your eyes for a moment. Just imagine a person that you’re out of harmony with.

Just one. You may have 15. But just center on one. And I want you then, after you have that person clearly in mind. And you know, there may be some of us who are… We feel we are not out of harmony with anybody. And that’s fine. But think of two people, you know, who are out of harmony with each other. And if you are not out of harmony with anyone, you think of two people who are. And picture them. But if you are out of harmony with that person you’re picturing, see Jesus there now with the two of you.

And see Jesus walk up and put His arms around that man or that woman or that boy or that girl. And just hug that person close. And just feel His love going out to that person and know that He loves that person as much as He loves you.

And then see Him turn to you and reach out His arm to you as He holds that other person in His other arm. And see yourself walking over to be by His side with His arm encircling you. And see Him look deeply into your eyes and feel His love and acceptance of you.

And then see Him look at that other person with the same love, the same acceptance. And then look back at you questioningly. Saying in essence, “Are you willing to be made willing to be reconciled with this child of God that I love as much as I love you?” And feel your heart that’s been sort of hard toward that person melt. And become tenderized. And feel Jesus’ love flow into you and out through you to that other person. And just be the channel. Don’t try to push love out to the person. Just accept the love Jesus is pouring into you and let it flow out through you to that other person.

And if you practice this day after day, you’re going to prime your own pump until one day as Jesus’ love flows through you to that person, your own love will flow too. Oh, Lord Jesus, we just thank You for the many things we’ve not even dreamed of yet that You’re longing to do in us and to us and through us. We would be teachable. We would be melted by You and molded and filled and used however and whenever You choose.

And we are willing to be made willing to be reconciled with anybody that we’re out of harmony with because we want to be a part of Your symphony of life and we want Your love to flow unimpeded to and through us to bless our brothers and sisters and to bless the world. Amen.