Good morning…
Our family is caring for a friend’s home and dog while their family is away. I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting her roses, snapping pictures, marveling at God’s intricate beauty. What life lessons have I learned while meandering through her rose garden, and which Bible verses whisper God’s truth in my ears, my eyes, and my heart?
- Different skin colors, on roses and on people, grow together peacefully as we remain rooted with the God who creates variety. Try to get along and live peacefully with each other. Now I pray that God, who gives love and peace, will be with you (2 Corinthians 13:11b, CEV).
2. Each unique flower and each unique person gradually unfurls in its own time. He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]—yet man cannot find out (comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to the end (Ecclesiastes 3:11, AMP).
3. In God’s lush garden, life and death are intertwined, intimately inseparable. For this perishable [part of us] must put on the imperishable [nature], and this mortal [part of us that is capable of dying] must put on immortality [which is freedom from death]. And when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the Scripture will be fulfilled that says, “Death is swallowed up in victory (vanquished forever). O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:53-55, AMP).
4. There is a sacred beauty to surrendering our whole self to God. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under the burden and sigh deeply (weighed down, depressed, oppressed)—not that we want to put off the body (the clothing of the spirit), but rather that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal (our dying body) may be swallowed up by life [after the resurrection] (2 Corinthians 5:4, AMPC).
Your new birth comes from God’s living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! That’s why the prophet said, The old life is a grass life, its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers; grass dries up, flowers droop, God’s Word goes on and on forever. This is the Word that conceived the new life in you (1 Peter 1:24-25, MSG).
May we each bloom exactly where, when, and how our live-giving LORD graciously chooses.
…Sue…
