Nature speaks to us every day. There are paintings in the sky, choruses in the air, brushstrokes of blooms happening daily. Every single day there is beauty yet to be discovered. We can give up on God’s beauty before it even happens. I know I do. I decide way too early what will become amazing and what will simply become. I have a flower on my porch. It needed a bigger pot and I took care of it. It is outside and this summer heat is brutal. It gets watered along with everything else on the porch. While all the other plants are blooming with fragrant masterpieces of God’s touch, this plant struggles to survive. There were no promises of blooms or even signs of survival. I left it on the porch just because. I had counted it out. I continued to water it because I was watering the others.
Out of nowhere, the leaves began to look more hopeful. They began to spring up with life and their green held signs of promise. I was cautiously optimistic there was more to be seen with this little guy. I didn’t do anything different. It did cause me to take notice of the changes, though. A few days ago, a small bloom popped out of the green leaves. Today, it fully bloomed into a flower. The vibrant orange bloom stands out among the otherwise all green plant. It is small but it signals hope and life. This plant has not bloomed its last. I was the only one that gave up. God was still working underneath the soil to bring up something amazing.
God’s garden teaches me that I give up too easily on what he is doing. He is watering and nurturing and caring beneath the surface. I decide way too early what is a good crop and what is useless. I don’t always see the promise of the soil or the blooms waiting to spring up. I fail to notice that God has not given up and I am simply to keep on loving and watch God produce.
What have you given up on that God is still working out? What have you failed to notice that God is doing all around you? Maybe he is working on you and me. Maybe there is something waiting to burst forth in us that is good and loving and amazing. Maybe there is a bloom in us we haven’t even seen yet. May God paint and create and nurture the goodness in our world today.
Focus Scripture:
Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery. Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery
SEEING THE EXTRAORDINARY 