Ken

I returned from church this afternoon in time to take a long walk afield. It was in the high-fifties and sunny. A walk on a Michigan autumn evening is a sacramental act. The sky is October blue, the trees brushed with color. The corn is dry and brown but it’s been rainy and we are still ahead of the first frost, so the grass is green and lush.

After my walk and sat out on the porch and read draining the very last drop for the bottom of the cup of this sweet Lord’s Day. Finally the sunlight dropped into the trees. The evening grew chill. I stepped down into the leaf-strewn yard and looked west one more time to where the sun and dropped behind the trees just in time to see a perfect V-shaped flock of geese cross the sky over the farm honking their way south and west over the line of trees.

Your Default Home Setting

Last week I received permission from the woman who owns the land north and east of Bittersweet Farm to freely walk her property. The generous gesture moved me to tears. It is a large tract of land including farm fields, wetland and woods. So I set off exploring on a brisk October Friday.

When I dress for work Hazard ignores me but he can tell when I’m dressing for a walk and he tails me around the house while I’m getting ready as if to say; “Take me too. Take me too.” I took him along and walked due north of Bittersweet Farm along the rocky, overgrown fencerow. We had covered about a mile going north in to the field behind that, skirting the east side of a low spot and woods. So two long fields run end to end north of us and woods is north of that. Beyond that, further north, is the Falling Waters Trail. Just south of the woods I let Hazard off his lead. He would run ahead and I would call him back before he got to far.

We repeated this an half-dozen times then I got distracted by a huge deer rub and about twenty Sandhill Cranes fishing and sunning in the pond in the south edge of the woods. I surprised them and they all rose into the air flapping their huge wings and calling out with their loud rattle-like call. They flew over the trees and east out of sight. By the time I climbed back to the high ground little Hazard was nowhere in sight. I called to him. He didn’t come.

I called Lois and told her that Hazard was lost. We prayed we could find him before Hope got off work. I turned and started the long walk back to the house. Along the way I called for Hazard. I worried that he might have strayed onto the property west of us where we don’t have the right to walk. It took me a half hour or more to get back to the line of trees that separate the two fields north of the house.

When I walked along the north side of the thicket I could hear Hazard barking. A smile came to my face when I realized that when he could not find me he beat it strait for home. No one was there but he was standing on the porched barking for someone to let him in.

He has a powerful instinct for home.

This week at Bethel I started a series of messages about Jonah, the prophet who, when he received his assignment, thought he could flee from the presence of God. I told the people this: There are three things I want to tell you about fleeing from the presence of God.

First, it is natural to flee from God because of our sin.

Second; It is Impossible to flee from the presence of God because of his power.

Third; It is foolish to flee from the presence of God because of his mercy and love.

The rest of the afternoon I sat in my chair and did some reading. Little Haz curled up on the ottoman at my feet, safe, secure, and well-fed. Take a lesson from Ole’ Haz. Train your soul to run for God whenever you are lost or lonely our burdened with guilt or shame.

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan
October 15, 2018

Here is a little treat for you. This is a short clip from a Camp Barakel Men’s Retreat in October. My little brother, Nate is playing the piano, so my brother Kevin sent me this clip.

https://youtu.be/PgCLBSFddUE

We’ve been sleeping with an extra cover the bed for the last few weeks, but tonight the temperature is dipping into the mid-forties so we turned on the furnace. Down in the basement the faithful appliance goes to work and in just a couple minutes a beautiful stream of warmth fills the room to just the perfect temperature and then falls quiet.

Last week I decided to test the furnace just to be sure it was ready for the season. It wasn’t. I called Keith Gillmore who is as handy as they come and an expert at furnaces. He came over tonight for a good talk and noticed a part that was supposed to be turning was not turning. He removed a few screws and discovered a dead bat was plugging the works.

We stood outside for a bit to talk about furnaces and restoring old cars and making cider. Keith grew up on a farm with an orchard making cider. I asked him if he missed it this time of year. He said he didn’t but a smile comes to his face as the tells his cider-house stories. Something about it just seems right standing out in the cool of an October nightfall while the farmer back of Bittersweet Farm shaves the last remaining rows of corn off his place and pours the precious fruit of the earth into a waiting grain truck.

I love living in a place where deer and wild turkeys stroll around the back acre, geese and cranes soar overhead, bittersweet grows in the rocky fencerow, and bats and other critters flit and seal about in the darkness. The windows are closed to the night air tonight, but my walk will be bracing in the morning.

The trees bending over the road are beginning to turn orange and yellow. When the sun falls on them they irradiate their color. Something in the beauty of it leaps into our soul.

When I drive through a tunnel of October-tinted trees it is a worship experience without fail. May heart rises up in grateful praise. The Great Artist of the Universe did not have to paint with such vivid and captivating colors but He did. He did it as a witness to His goodness to draw your soul upward to Him.

Jesus himself is the Great Creator and only he can satisfy your heart. He alone should have your heart.

On one of the Apostle Paul’s church-planting missions he visited Lystra. God allowed them to heal a man who had not been able to walk from birth. When people of Lystra saw this they tried to worship Paul and Barnabas. The men quickly reminded them that only God who made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them was worthy of worship and able to satisfy the deepest longings of their souls.

“Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”” (Acts 14:17, ESV)

There is something to think about when you are lying in your bed on a cool October night and you year the furnace kick on.

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan
October 8, 2018