Good Tuesday morning (5-31-11),

About a year ago, as I do almost every spring, I planted a small truckload of trees and bushes. I had planted quite a few hollies, and after a few weeks in the ground, I noticed one particular bush had lost almost all of its leaves. Wasting no time for a plant that obviously wasn’t healthy, I just pulled it up and pitched it into the woods.

The next day, as I was walking past that plant, I had the weirdest drawing to stop and inspect it. There it was, roots exposed, only a few little yellowing leaves at the tip of its frail branches. Then strangely, sadness and a deep sense of compassion came over me. Compassion for a plant! Now that’s a new one for me, but I had this overwhelming desire to try and save the little bush.

The short of the story is that my effort to revive the holly was successful, amazingly, and this year it’s doing well as a beautiful addition to my garden.

That day, as I re-dug a hole and patiently placed dirt around those moldy, drying roots, I remembered what Jesus had once shared with His disciples, “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”

For me, rescuing that little plant was a reminder of how much God wants to save those we reject. Namely, until it’s over, God doesn’t give up on anyone, no matter how hopeless and dry they may be.

When we have the Father’s heart, we know our calling is to seek and save that which is lost. All we have to do is open our eyes to the needs around us, they’re everywhere. Our real mission field is only one elbow away.

But it’s certainly more glamorous (and in many ways easier) to go off into those faraway places where we can preach our gospel and then leave, not having to follow up on those who later disappoint us in their spiritual frailties. For most, it’s too much effort to keep up with those high maintenance personalities.

Fortunately for both of us, it’s the nature of the Father to seek and save that which is lost. Through the way He deals with people, God is teaching all of creation about His love, mercy, and compassion. Through the way we deal with people, the Church is teaching the world about our kind of love, mercy, and compassion.

Peter rejected Christ at the worst possible time, and the world had trained Peter that his personal failure meant he was unworthy to pursue the call to lead the Church as an apostle. While he wept bitterly after denying Jesus, I’m sure Peter saw himself as worthless, ready to be plucked up and left to die. The devil’s all too cruel and ruthless, killing off the frail with guilt.

Yet, when Jesus arose from the dead, do you remember the angel telling Mary to go and seek for the disciples “and Peter” in order to tell them that He’s alive? Peter, who was crushed under the weight of his personal failures, was singled out by Jesus. He said, seek out Peter and tell him “I’m alive!”

When Mary gave Peter that good news, she was saying so much more. She was telling him that Jesus has not rejected you, as He still calls for you. He forgives you Peter. He still loves you and can’t wait to see you again! He has risen, and your failure is forgiven. He seeks you; rejoice and run to Him!

God regards the prayer of the destitute. He doesn’t despise their prayer, as He didn’t despise Peter’s prayer. Like a father pities his children, so the Lord pities all who call upon Him. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are but dust. Man’s days are like grass, but as the flower of the field, so he flourishes under God’s blessings.

Now that I think about it, I remember a plant being used to teach someone else a thing or two about God’s compassion for people. His name was Jonah.

After reluctantly preaching in Nineveh, the Word of God stuck, and the whole city repented. Revival meant no destruction of the city, much to the complete dismay of one Jonah the Prophet.

Dirty little Ninevites, now serving God in all the wrong ways! They have no temple, they pray wrong, they have no covenant! I wonder if that’s what Jonah thought? At any rate, Jonah apparently wanted God to favor Israel by destroying Nineveh, in spite of its revival.

But this little Prophet was taught a lesson about God’s compassion through a plant, a simple little gourd vine.

Jonah was shaded by this vine as he watched from afar to see whether God would go ahead and destroy Nineveh. But instead, the next morning he awoke to find his vine had died, while the people of Nineveh were still very much alive, spared by the mercy of God.

It was then that God spoke to the sullied prophet by saying, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

Wayne Witcher