For a moment I would like to say that I am so grateful for this land
that I live in. I am grateful for Founding Fathers who chose God over
the philosophies of man, who fought for liberty and signed their names
to a treasonous document that changed the course of the world. I am so
thankful for the many men and women who have fought, served and
sometimes died for the cause of freedom, Liberty and hope for a brighter
tomorrow. I am thankful for a land and freedom that is a gift. (Please
see my facebook page for many more Independence Day quotes and themes.)
I began my blogging "career" as a young teenager wanting to tell the world about the amazing history of America and the God given land we have when we live our covenants. That desire petered out rather quickly and that blog became something I only wrote on the 4th of July. This new blog came about because I realized that if I wanted readers I needed to write more than once a year and I needed to write about more than my frustrations that no one my age seemed to care about where we came from (mind you that still does frustrate me sometimes). Sometimes we are taken from the path that we are on, sometimes the Lord takes us from where we think we should be.
Here is another thought for tonight that I found from Hugh B Brown. Sometimes life doesn't go as planned, sometimes we face a curveball we have no idea how to face, sometimes shaking our fist at heave seems like a much more satisfying answer to life, but sometimes we simply need a gentle reminder of who the gardener is.
"Could I tell you just a quick story out of my own experience in life?
Sixty-odd years ago I was on a farm in Canada. I had purchased the farm
from another who had been somewhat careless in keeping it up. I went
out one morning and found a currant bush that was at least six feet
high. I knew that it was going all to wood. There was no sign of blossom
or of fruit....So I got my
pruning shears and went to work on that currant bush, and I clipped it
and cut it and cut it down until there was nothing left but a little
clump of stumps.
And as I looked at them, I yielded to an impulse, which I often have,
to talk with inanimate things and have them talk to me... As I looked at this little
clump of stumps, there seemed to be a tear on each one, and I said,
“What’s the matter, currant bush? What are you crying about?”
And I thought I heard that currant bush speak. It seemed to say, “How
could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was
almost as large as the fruit tree and the shade tree, and now you have
cut me down. And all in the garden will look upon me with contempt and
pity. How could you do it? I thought you were the gardener here.”
I thought I heard that from the currant bush. I thought it so much that I answered it.
I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here,
and I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to
go, you will never amount to anything. But someday, when you are laden
with fruit, you are going to think back and say, ‘Thank you, Mr.
Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.’”
Ten years passed, and I found myself in Europe. I had made some
progress in the First World War in the Canadian army. In fact, I was a
field officer, and there was only one man between me and the rank of
general, which I had cherished in my heart for years. Then he became a
casualty. And the day after, I received a telegram from London from
General Turner, who was in charge of all Canadian officers. The telegram
said, “Be in my office tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”
I puffed up. I called my special servant. (We called them “batmen”
over there.) I said, “Polish my boots and my buttons. Make me look like a
general, because I am going up tomorrow to be appointed.”
He did the best he could with what he had to work on, and I went to
London. I walked into the office of the general. I saluted him smartly,
and he replied to my salute as higher officers usually do to
juniors—sort of a “Get out of the way, worm.” Then he said, “Sit down,
Brown.”
I was deflated. I sat down. And he said, “Brown, you are entitled to
this promotion, but I cannot make it. You have qualified and passed the
regulations, you have had the experience, and you are entitled to it in
every way, but I cannot make this appointment.”
Just then he went into the other room to answer a phone call, and I
did what most every officer and man in the army would do under those
circumstances: I looked over on his desk to see what my personal history
sheet showed. And I saw written on the bottom of that history sheet in
large capital letters: “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.”
Now at that time we were hated heartily in Britain, and I knew why he
couldn’t make the appointment. Finally he came back and said, “That’s
all, Brown.”
I saluted him, less heartily than before, and went out. On my way
back to Shorncliffe, 120 kilometers away, I thought every turn of the
wheels that clacked across the rails was saying, “You’re a failure. You
must go home and be called a coward by those who do not understand.”
And bitterness rose in my heart until I arrived, finally, in my tent,
and I rather vigorously threw my cap on the cot, together with my Sam
Browne belt. I clenched my fist, and I shook it at heaven, and I said,
“How could you do this to me, God? I’ve done everything that I knew how
to do to uphold the standards of the Church. I was making such wonderful
growth, and now you’ve cut me down. How could you do it?”
And then I heard a voice. It sounded like my own voice, and the voice
said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to be. If I let
you go the way you want to go, you will never amount to anything. And
someday, when you are ripened in life, you are going to shout back
across the time and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down,
for loving me enough to hurt me.’”
Those words—which I recognize now as my words to the currant bush and
that had become God’s word to me—drove me to my knees, where I prayed
for forgiveness for my arrogance and my ambition.
My young friends and brothers and sisters, will you remember that
little experience that changed my whole life? Had the Gardener not taken
control and done for me what was best for me, or if I had gone the way I
wanted to go, I would have returned to Canada as a senior commanding
officer of western Canada. I would have raised my family in a barracks.
My six daughters would have had little chance to marry in the Church. I
myself would probably have gone down and down. I do not know what might
have happened, but this I know, and this I say to you and to Him in your
presence, looking back over sixty years: “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for
cutting me down.”" Hugh B Brown
