what God is dew-ing

There is a stark contrast between this time of year in the Carolinas and in Ukarumpa. Okay, really, just about any time of year there is a stark difference between the Carolinas and the eastern highlands of PNG climate. I suppose that is one of the main reasons why I have been so intrigued by the change of seasons while we are living Stateside this year. There are essentially two seasons, in my best opinion, in Ukarumpa - heavy gully washers almost every day and doesn't rain as often but is always cloudy. (Others may refer to these two seasons as rainy and dry, but that's a little too boring of a description if you ask me!) It's only every two, three or four years that I will experience the four seasons that the Carolinas offer so when I am here, I soak them in. Especially autumn and winter. Which is totally weird since I usually despise these times of year. Yes, I am one of those flip-flop crazed Southerns who loves soaking in the hot sticky days of summer. But, honestly, has there ever been a more fabulous fall than the fall of 2014? I beg to differ if you think so. My mind only remembers intense gold, red, browns, yellows, greens, oranges... beautiful. #contentedsigh

The landscape in Ukarumpa is what I imagine the Garden of Eden would have been like. Eternal spring time. Glorious and exotic flowers everywhere. Every.Where. Lush green life that screams "GLORY! Glory to God in the highest!". Our first term was just two years, but I can honestly say not one solitary day went by without my eyes being bombarded by God's incredibly beautiful creation that is the eastern highlands of PNG. Those hills. #homesickforPNG

This morning I drove kiddos to school. (This doesn't happen all that often thanks to my ever-so-alert-in-the-morning-person better half. Marty, I love you the most when you take the kids to school in the morning! 'Cause if I had my way early morning would start around 10 am after two cups of strongly brewed coffee.) This morning it was cold. The type of cold I call "freezing degrees". Brrrrr. It was frosty and realllllly foggy. It was stunning, y'all. I don't have a picture, but trust me, it was a very Thomas Kinkade-y morning. You know, the sort of morning that you imagine a fella somewhere painting and then somewhere on along down the line someone else will reproduce his creation and sell it to the masses. (This is how my mind works... Yes, I googled what Thomas Kinkade looked like. By the way, he was quite the average looking sort of guy. Did y'all know he died of natural causes at the early age of 54?) 

Anyyyyyyywho...

The cold got my attention first. The sort of cold that makes you gasp a little. Cold that automatically creeps in under your clothes. Cold that causes you to notice not only your own breath, but everyone else's breath around you as well. Cold that makes your fingers tingle, and makes you hate to grab the steering wheel when you forget to wear your gloves. 

Then the fog was like WOAH. Fog that tries to hide what is really there. Fog that covers the landscape like a blanket. Fog that makes you think a Sasquatch should peek out from behind a big tree on the edge of the forest. (No, I don't really believe in Big Foot.) Fog that had me thinking a good bit about what I recently wrote. (Did you read it? You should.)

However what demanded my attention so fully was the frost. Frost that crunches, creaks and cracks under my feet. Frost that covers seemingly every surface. Frost that weighs the individual blades of grass and makes them slump like they are fighting to come awake. Frost that was growing what seemed like feathers on the front window pane of our storm door. Creeping, growing frost. Hard frost. Course, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a meteorologist, so perhaps I shouldn't say it was a hard frost. I really don't know what that even means except that it took a really, really long time for the ice to melt off my car and everything, everywhere we drove by was breathtakingly white. I am sure there is a specific term for this sort of frost. The sort of frost that at a first glance makes you think is has snowed and we should all panic and run the grocery stores aisles for bread and milk (it's Southern thing y'all... you either get it or you don't). Maybe, just maybe, in my overly wordy sort of way some of you have a mental picture of what I am trying to explain.

"the frost of heaven, who has given it birth?" Job 38:29 NASB

Frost that God has created.

This frost was intense. By the way, did you know that frost isn't frozen dew? I learned that today. 'Cause the more and more re-visited that image was in my mind, the Thomas-Kinkade-y frosted morning (that's what I will call it), the more I wanted to know about frost and dew. Especially after I began my Bible study and it was titled "The 'Dew' and the 'Do' of Heaven". I kid you not.

Yeah, God works like that. He's all there. Every where. All the time. You just have to be attentive. Pay attention to what He is saying. What He is doing. How He is working. Often times He is quite blunt and gathers my attention quickly. I like it when He works like that. I'ma simple minded girl so I appreciate His gentle but firm taps on the shoulder to make me pay attention to what He has to say to me.

I want to pull together a couple of thoughts for myself. Maybe they will make some sense to you too?

Frost isn't frozen dew, but frost forms in the same way that dew forms - from the moisture in the air forming on the ground. Dew is when there is enough moisture in the air to make condensation (that word makes me giggle... read paragraph seven of leg one from this post if you wanna know why). Frost is when that same moisture goes straight from a gas to a solid cause the temperature is below freezing. (See "freezing degrees"!!) Blah, blah, blah. Anyhow. Even if they aren't exactly the same since they are formed the same sort of way the frost got me to thinking on what the Bible says about dew.

"Throughout Scripture, dew is used as a sign of divine grace and favor." Priscilla Shirer 

"His favor is like dew on the grass." Proverbs 19:12 NLT

In Genesis 27:28 when Isaac blesses Jacob he uses the metaphor of dew, "From the dew of heaven, and the riches of the earth, may God always give you abundant harvests".

And again a blessing in Deuteronomy 33:28 when Moses is speaking over Israel, "So Israel will live in safety, prosperous Jacob in security, in a land of grain and new wine, while the heavens drop down dew."

"I will be to Israel like a refreshing dew from heaven." Hosea 14:5 NLT

See the correlation between dew and favor? Niftiness, huh? And Who is dew-ing the blessing??

"Who gives birth to the dew?" Job 38:28 NLT

It is frequently a temptation of mine to flash mob through life. Doing my own thing. On my own agenda. No matter the surrounding circumstances. Flash mob of one. Hee hee. Not exactly a flash mob, but you catch my drift, right? I guess what I am trying to say is that I am determined. Focused on an end result. Passionate! My fear is that I take this tendency to see life from my own limited perspective and blatantly ignore what God is doing around me in the process. 

Especially as I wait on the Lord to provide for us to return to serve in Ukarumpa. I fear in my focused determination and always looking for the finished product I am ignoring His blessings and provision in the here and now. 

Am I making an sense at all?

It was like this... He used that image, the Thomas-Kinkade-y frosted morning, to alert me to what He is dew-ing (for lack of a better way to gather your attention). He is blessing. He is providing. Showering our ministry with His favor in the process of attaining that end result. 

Just like the night air becomes saturated with water vapor and leaves evidence in the form of dew and frost in the morning, so is my life saturated with His goodness and blessing. 

Even in the waiting. Even when the final product (a completed partnership team and provision to return to our home across the Pacific) isn't in my line of sight. Even when I don't always get exactly what I want right exactly when I want it. The goodness of God and His blessings still saturate my life.

Just, one more tidbit, k? As life becomes saturated with His presence, like the night air is saturated with water vapor, there will be undeniable evidence of Him. Even in the dead of winter when circumstances feel frozen and new growth is hidden and protected, waiting for spring. Even then, He will make Himself known.  

So here's the moral of my rambling thoughts and a direct challenge. Please, take a good look around you. Even if you aren't exactly where you want to be, doing exactly what you want to be doing. What is God dew-ing for you? How is He displaying His favor? How is He blessing you? And how will you use it to glorify Him?