Luke 12:28 And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won't He more surely care for you?
God has surely cared for me. Through flood and drought and day and night, He continues to water me and prune me and gently unfold each blossom of beauty He has put inside of me.
My marigolds grow big and full when they are pinched. When the dead blooms are removed it causes them to blossom all the more. I have to remove the dead stuff to get to the beauty. God does the same for me, for you. But there is one difference, we have to allow it. My marigolds don't really have a choice if I pinch them, but I can ignore God's work in my life if I so choose. Removal of the dead stuff can be painful and scary because it is what I am used to. But when I trust my Father and allow His work to be done, I am never let down by the results. In fact, I become more free and begin to bloom the way He had in mind for me to bloom all along.
I have often thought that I need to be doing something all the time for this blossoming to happen and to make my life purposeful. It never works out that way. Sure, some good things happen and I may feel productive or as though I have earned another day, but I have not often rested in the Lord and trusted in Him to do the work. I have not often just sat and worshiped Him, and watched in awe, forgetting myself.
I am learning though. Learning as I let go of my own ideas of what my purpose may be. Learning as I trust Him more and more to do the work. He is the master gardener after all. Not me.
As I was pinching my marigolds this morning, I thought, "Perhaps this is my purpose today..." To do nothing more than pinch marigolds and talk to my Father and pray for my family and friends. It is most likely that much more got accomplished than if I had run around all day wearing myself out.
This is not an entirely new concept for me, but it is one I have not really understood until just recently due to stress related physical problems.
As I begin to learn to rest and allow God to do the work, I am seeing much better results than when I was laboring, trying to make things happen. Amazing right? Well not really, of course! I am finding the real me in the process. The one created by God, not the one reacting to the world around me. Perhaps if I let Him take off all the dead stuff I will bloom for Him the way He intended and He will be glorified.
Perhaps I have nothing to do at all except to let Him work and water and pinch. And love Him!
