I. The Bushel Basket of Human Reason
Has God poured out a revelation?
Yet you’re gripped with hesitation,
One foot in and one foot out,
Beset by darkness, gloom and doubt
Beneath a dome of intellect
That won’t permit you to detect
The light of God you hold inside.
It almost feels as if you’ve died.
The bushel basket “Human Reason”
Is like salt that cannot season,
Hidden from the light of day
And stranger to the childlike play
That shines so brightly on God’s Word
To make sense of the things you’ve heard.
But when it’s veiled by intellect,
It’s so much harder to detect.
II. The Bushel Basket of Intellect Hides Truth
For, how can anyone suspect
Your faith is real if you reject
Whatever you don’t understand,
As if it’s YOUR truth to command?
The word from which you seek to glean,
If it cannot be fully seen,
Is robbed of power to feed your soul.
So then, how can it make you whole?
For though the light is shining in,
You feel as if you’ll never win
Because this bushel shrouds your head
With arguments that reek of dread
And reasons that explain away
The truths you know are real today.
By asking, “Did God really say?”
Behold, these truths ARE child’s play.
Yet bushel baskets have suppressed
And made them feel like nothingness.
A friend of mine once connected the idea of placing a light under a bushel to modern worship practices which deliver the light of God’s presence in measured doses (e.g. two worship songs, announcements, more worship songs, then the pastor gives the word). The bushel stops the light before it penetrates too far, thus depriving the listeners of a complete worship experience.
Just as a bushel basket hides light, so does human reasoning limit the light of God’s truth. If we think we know exactly how God wants to work (within a service, for example), then we’ll only allow the Holy Spirit so much room to move. “This far and no farther.” But is that God’s will for His church?
“Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel but on a candlestick, and it gives light to all that are in the house.” Matthew 5:15, KJV
Signs, Wonders, Miracles 