The Lord has made everything beautiful in its time. So, from time to time, as the seasons dictate, I'm introducing a new series called Wild Game, Tame Garden. As an avid hunter and Master Gardener, join me as we explore topics ranging from hunting in the wild to gardening right outside your own back door.

If David could behold God's fingerprints painted across the sky, or if Solomon could glean wisdom from among the ants, how much more can we learn from God's creation in which we live? I hope you enjoy this segment of Wild Game, Tame Garden.

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Local Calls from Mississippi's Delta

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A man in Topeka, Kansas, decided to write a book about churches across the country. He started by flying to San Francisco and working his way east. At a very large church, he noticed a golden telephone on the vestibule wall with a sign that read: “$10,000 a minute.” Curious, he asked the pastor about it.

The pastor explained, “That golden phone is a direct line to Heaven. If you’re willing to pay the price, you can talk directly to God.”

Thanking him, the man continued his journey. In city after city—Seattle, Denver, Chicago, St. Louis—he found the same golden phone with the same sign and the same answer from each pastor.

Finally, he drove south and ended up in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Sure enough, there was the golden phone. But this time, the sign read: “Calls: 25 cents.”

Puzzled, he asked the pastor, “Reverend, I’ve been all over the country. Every church had this golden phone, and each time I was told it was a direct line to Heaven—but at $10,000 a minute. Here it’s only 25 cents. Why?”

The pastor smiled and replied, “Son, you’re in the Mississippi Delta now, so it’s a local call.”

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If you’ve not been to God’s country (the Delta), I’ll tell you what it's like, which will hardly suffice, but can at least scratch the surface.

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From Birmingham, you’re just an hour from Tupelo—the birthplace of Elvis.

Heading west toward Memphis, a few cut roads carry you through Oxford, Mississippi, home to one of the South’s most legendary traditions. All SEC tailgates are renowned, but none rival The Grove at Ole Miss. As the saying goes, “We may not win every game, but we’ve never lost a party.”

Further west you edge closer to the mighty Mississippi— within its floodplains lies Clarksdale—God’s Country proper—where Abe's B-B-Q tops anything that Memphis, Tennessee could ever put out, where blues riffs spill out on every other street, and sunsets flare across the sky that God’s very fingers painted out.

The hills taper down once you pass Batesville. You can feel the land flatten, marking the start of your final descent. It’s at that moment the busyness of our world dissipates off my shoulders. I go there to breathe the open air on our increasingly congested planet. It brings to mind a quote from Saint Ambrose, who so eloquently put it:

It’s been said that Christianity has answers that are not only satisfying for the soul but satisfying for the mind. That being so, nowhere do the answers of life speak more loudly than the outdoors. Stillness, I believe, is conducive to hearing from God above all else.

The question is, what about you? Where do you go to inhale pure air, to breathe in life-restoring oxygen? If the majority of your time is spent making deposits to everyone and everything else, even if your intentions are pure, something is majorly missing.

The Lord structured our DNA such that we need deposits into others, but receive withdrawals as well. Don’t believe me? I’ll ask you this: Can a person exhale only? Or does half of the breathing cycle involve inhaling too?

It’s not selfish to make withdrawals; it’s necessary. A refusal to allow others to deposit into you hints of arrogance-pretty much a stubbornness that signifies “I’m taking on the role of the Holy Spirit, because I can handle my problems AND your problems better than He.”

Can an automobile operate nonstop without being refueled? Rested? What’s true with engines is true with us…have you considered how God commands us in Psalm 46:10, “Be still!” or as some translations say, “Cease striving!” The Hebrew word rapah literally means to “Let go, cease, or refrain.”

But the verse does not stop there. Do you know for what purpose The Lord commands us to “let go, cease, refrain?” “So that we can know He is God.” If you haven’t noticed that caveat before, please lock it in now. You will know He is God to the extent you are still!

In other words, it reminds us He is God, and we are not.

I see people all the time, mothers especially, who are exhausted all day long, every day, because they’ve poured into everyone else, but nobody’s pouring into them. If getting away for a short season refreshes you, if you’re married, single, or whatever, go there tomorrow for your own good, and the good of those whom you adore. Others can pick up the slack. You simply cannot give out what you are not taking in!

‍And if someone inquires “Where are you going and why?” Just smile and keep it simple: “It’s a very special place, where I can go to make a local call.”

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‍Jesus said, "For those who have ears to hear, let them hear."