But not everything is beautiful! Can God show his glory in an ugly entangled dead hanging branch? Can God show his beauty in fallen limbs covered with green fungus?

Running is a passion of mine and I run with God in mind. I use my running time for prayer and enjoying God’s glory that surrounds me. My quiet running route leads me to the beautiful Rainbow River. Both sides of the road leading to the river show forth God’s glory with an abundance of all kinds of trees, wild flowers, birds, and squirrels. Every now and then a cotton tailed rabbit will jump out of the woods.

But not everything is beautiful! Can God show his glory in an ugly entangled dead hanging branch? Can God show his beauty in fallen limbs covered with green fungus?

The Ugly Hanging Branch

While running one glorious morning I noticed a large dead branch hanging from an almost dead tree. It looked like it was destined to hang there for many days, months, or even a year. The branch was tangled in a web of other dead branches that would not let it go.

Whoa, I thought, that is a perfect picture of an unsaved sinner. He is a dead man. He has no spiritual life. He is hanging in the web of his sins and they’re not letting him go. Being dead he has no power to untangled himself from the grip of the multitude of sins.

The Holy Spirit, my teacher, reminded me that, I too, was once that dead branch, entangled in a web of sins and with no chance of changing myself to anything else. I had no power to make my dead body come to life. But, then, like Paul on the Road to Damascus, Jesus the Nazarene, called my name. He opened my dead eyes and pumped life into my sin-harden heart and set me free from the entangled web of those sins.

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.

It is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2: 4,5).

The Fallen Green Fungus Limbs

The next morning, as I was running to the river, I started paying attention to the not so beautiful scenery. As I approached the entrance road to the river I noticed a group of fallen large tree limbs. They were encrusted with some kind of lime green fungus. Many clumps of gray air plants clung to the dead limbs. The limbs were heavy laden with burdens.

When I passed by them, I immediately thought of the words of the old familiar hymn, “Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?”

Running through my mind was the thought that many times I have been like those fallen dead limbs. I have been weakened by my lime green fungus of sins. Heavy laden with the burdensome, life- sucking air plants of everyday problems. But God, the great lifter of hearts, reminded me that the hymn I had learned so long ago has another verse, “Precious Savior still our refuge; take it to the Lord in prayer.”

“Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Miriam Gautier is a member of Springs Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Dunnellon, Fla.

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