by Dan Jones<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I recently spent some time in the Brainerd area and, as usual, was blessed by the amazing beauty of God’s grandeur among the shimmering lakes and the towering pines.<\/span><\/p>\n The fishing was really good, as was the time I spent with my brother and his fiance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On the last day, as I was saying my good-byes, a tiny little glint of brilliant red beneath a pine tree caught my eye. I bent over to investigate and I realized I was looking at\u00a0a small patch of wild strawberries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The berries were tiny in comparison to any I had ever seen. They seemed no bigger than a drop of blood and they were nearly as red.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Without even considering that I could have misidentified the plant and its fruit, I ate one.<\/span><\/p>\n It was as if all the flavor of one of those golf-ball sized strawberries from the grocery store had been condensed into that teeny little berry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, I ate another one.<\/span><\/p>\n I wished there had been enough of them there to gather them up and make a batch of jam, but there wasn’t even a handful in that small space.<\/span><\/p>\n The image of the berry stuck in my head on the drive home and it reminded me of Paul writing in Romans 11 about how we, as wild olive branches, have been grafted into the natural olive root and become part of the family of God.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The little berries there at the base of that tree reminded me of the drops of precious blood at the base of another tree –the cross where Jesus died\u00a0to save you and me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As I drove along and SRN News came over Kinship Christian Radio, I thought of all the blood shed and how every drop of it that ever fell to the ground was that same color.<\/span><\/p>\n I thought of how, even though it often seems we are few, we are called nonetheless to produce fruit that is sweet and delicious.<\/span><\/p>\n And I thought of how, even though we are very small and our nature is to be wild, we are called to shine and draw others to glorify God.<\/span><\/p>\n Today’s Praise<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n How unsearchable his judgments,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n and his paths beyond tracing out!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWho has known the mind of the Lord?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Or who has been his counselor?\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Who has ever given to God,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n that God should repay them?\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n For from him and through him and for him are all things.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n To him be the glory forever! Amen.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Romans 11:33 – 36 (NIV)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Dan Jones I recently spent some time in the Brainerd area and, as usual, was blessed by the amazing beauty of God’s grandeur among the shimmering lakes and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 13:02:45","action":"delete","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}