Thought for the Month - October 2014
"Bloom where you're planted" by Linda Adair
Over the past summer I've had the privilege of spending a lot of time back at my childhood home, deep in the Tyrone countryside. During this time, when I haven't been rushing around, I've had the wonderful opportunity of taking in the colours, shapes, sounds and intricacies of God's creation. For 23 years I lived at that place, yet when I really took the time to look lately I saw things in a few weeks that I'd missed in all of those years!
My mum is a very gifted gardener, and has years of knowledge about what will grow where…whether a plant needs light or shade, rich soil or thin soil, dry or damp conditions. Her garden reflects this, as her plants bloom joyfully and abundantly, when God miraculously turns seeds into beautiful flowers.
So as I have looked around her garden, and around the fields, hedges and trees surrounding it, I've been thinking about the order of all these living things…how we may plant, may know how to care for them, but ultimately it is God who makes them grow and bloom, each in its proper place.
However, in life we may not always like where WE are planted. Anyone who thinks life doesn't have its rough places must be living on a different planet to the rest of us! Yet, just like those plants in Mum's garden, God knows the perfect place for us to be for optimum growth. The soil may feel a bit inadequate and rocky round our roots, and at times the sun may feel a bit hot on our heads…yet it's the place HE has brought us to, and HE knows the best conditions for our faith, character and witness to grow and develop. Maybe it's a bit wet just where we find ourselves…at times we can feel the floods rising up and it seems we're going to be washed away. But God knows we need the rain too…His beautiful creations - plants, animals and humans ALL need the life-giving water He sends.
So it's our choice: Do we shiver, hunch and complain bitterly about the conditions, or do we choose to absorb the sun on our faces, drink in the rejuvenating wetness, let our roots drop deeper into the unplumbed depths of His security and strength? It is human to do the complaining bit…I know, because I've done it often enough myself, and many days am not yet totally cured of it!
I'm also aware that there are depths of human suffering, physical, mental and emotional, that I can't begin to imagine. In those dark places the prayers of others and Christ Himself in Heaven (Romans 8: 26) can provide a wind break…that allow us to submit to God's loving touch, the ultimate Care-giver. It is He who tends us when we are weak and helpless, scorched and battered by the winds of life.
Yet it's God's will that we bloom where we are planted, and that we embrace the promise that He makes all things beautiful …in a time frame designed by HIM! (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
As a teenager I had a pretty severe bout of illness. Back then, profoundly exhausted, in bed over months, and unaware of the situation's life-long health consequences, I was a believer of just a couple of weeks. I remember God speaking to me, as His child, through this beautiful song which I played over and over, and its reassurances still bless:
The Hard Times (Jamie Owens, 1975)
Is the rain falling from the sky keeping you from singing?
Is that tear falling from your eye, 'cause the wind is stinging?
Don't you fret now, child, don't you worry?
The rain's to help you grow so don't try to hurry the storm along.
The hard times make you strong.
Don't you know, a seed could never grow, if there were no showers?
Though the rain might bring a little pain, just think of all the flowers.
I know how long a day can seem, when storm clouds hide His face;
And if the rain dissolves your dream, just remember His amazing grace!
Don't you know, the sun is always there, even when the rains fall?
Don't you know, the Son will always care, when He hears your voice call?
Don't you fret now, child, don't you worry?
The rains to help you grow so don't try to hurry the storm along.
The hard times make you strong.
The truths are just the same 37 years later. The hard times DO make us strong, even, paradoxically, in our weakness (2 Cor 12:9-10)…and I have learned a little first-hand how profoundly weak it's possible to be. We may be cast down but never defeated. There's a depth gained by resting in God, letting our roots go down further, developing a more organic relationship with God, watered by His love, His voice and His word. There's also an inexplicable joy and contentment to know that we are the centre of our Father's will, albeit in a dry and seemingly barren place.
It's exceptionally hard to learn to rest, to be content, but it's the only way to peace (Philippians 4:11). Paul learned this the hard way when his gifts as a preacher were thwarted, it seemed, by imprisonment. However, the ministry of letters he was then forced to adopt still blesses millions through Holy Scripture, millennia after his death. We can fret and worry about what we can't do on our own…but if we let God nourish and sustain us where we are, we can, through suffering (Romans 8: 18) faith, and acceptance , GROW in grace, and go on to produce BLOOMS beyond imagining…right from where we are planted.
"But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18)
"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:13).
Are you SURE that you have your place booked in Heaven? Read this if you're not!