For those of you who have been following Shepastor for sometime, you may recall my frequent musings on lessons learned from our family garden. Today is another one! Our rose bush seemed rather bereft of rose buds this year – lots of stems, thorns and leaves, but no rose buds. Two stems, however, seemed to start growing taller, much taller than the bush.
As I looked at the tall stems each day, I kept saying to myself, “You need to go out there, get the shears and cut those two stems down. They are exceedingly disproportional to the rest of the bush.” Full of thorns and somewhat ugly, the two stems persisted in growing taller. Finally, I said to myself, “This weekend is it!” That was Monday. However, when Friday came a strange thing occurred. The two tall, thorny stems had rose buds upon them. Puzzled, surprised and “out done,” I decided to leave them alone.
Each day, the rose buds grew larger and larger. Ultimately, they burst into big, bright, beautiful melon colored roses. Had I cut the “disproportional” stems down, I never would have seen the roses. The bush seemed to speak a metaphor for life to me… So often, we become discouraged when our proverbial bushes seem full of empty leaves and thorns. Then something begins to grow, but it appears to be so disappointing – still no roses, a waste if time. The bush speaks, “don’t cut me down – just let me grow!” Let God do His business in your life. That which seems barren, out of kilter, disproportionate and appearing ripe to be cut down may be on the verge of breaking forth into beautiful blossoms.
Don’t cut down your stems… Continue the work that God has entrusted to your care. Don’t cut down your stems…within the seemingly barren, thorn rattled stem is a beautiful flower bud about to blossom…Don’t cut down your stems…you are on the verge of a break through – that ministry, that prayer, that hope, that dream, that vision, that blessing – don’t cut it down as a result of relying only on what your natural eyes can see. In the heavens, God has rose buds about to burst open into your reality.
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Until Next Wednesday,
In Faith, Hope and Perseverance,
Pastor Chris
Thanks for this, Chris! What a great image, and one that I really appreciated hearing today (especially on a very cold, dark, rainy day outside--too easy to be focused on the scraggly thorns and not focused enough on the hope of melon-colored roses).
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