While these prolific beauties do grow and grow and grow, they do not do it without a bit of care. I have never claimed to be a master gardener. I am always just a bit surprised if anything grows because I am never quite sure what I am doing. Still, in the morning as I stumble to the kitchen for my morning coffee, I glance out the window to check on our little petunias. From afar they look great but later as I make my way unto the deck and draw closer to them I can begin to spot a lot of problems.
Every single morning there are many flowers that are either dried up and dead or on their way there. So I begin...snip,snip,snip...the wasted blooms fall away and finally one container looks done and I can't see anything more to be dead headed. I go to the second container and repeat the procedure. Then, back to the first container and look at it from a different angle. Sure enough. More dead little rascals are hiding. So, I lift up the flowers and look underneath. More of them...
The next day there are more spent and faded flowers and the process starts all over again! But all day long the petunias look healthy, lush, and full of beautiful blooms!
Last weekend we had company and I was too busy to do anything more than just make sure my flowers had water. On Monday morning when I went out to check on them my plants were consumed with dead and wilting blooms everywhere. I got busy and started snipping. I began to wonder if I would ever finish this pruning process. Eventually, I could find nothing more to cut and when I leaned back to survey the job I had done I felt so sad. My little petunias were sparsely placed on each stem looking nothing like they had before the weekend. The flower box was still filled with colorful petunias but they no longer looked like the beautiful princess on her way to a ball but instead they looked like the little orphan girl sitting outside the party dressed in rags! What to do?
I continued to water and fertilize and prune, prune, prune! Every day the flowers looked healthier and healthier. Every day it took less and less time to clip off the dead flowers because there were fewer and fewer of them.
Last weekend we had company and I was too busy to do anything more than just make sure my flowers had water. On Monday morning when I went out to check on them my plants were consumed with dead and wilting blooms everywhere. I got busy and started snipping. I began to wonder if I would ever finish this pruning process. Eventually, I could find nothing more to cut and when I leaned back to survey the job I had done I felt so sad. My little petunias were sparsely placed on each stem looking nothing like they had before the weekend. The flower box was still filled with colorful petunias but they no longer looked like the beautiful princess on her way to a ball but instead they looked like the little orphan girl sitting outside the party dressed in rags! What to do?
I continued to water and fertilize and prune, prune, prune! Every day the flowers looked healthier and healthier. Every day it took less and less time to clip off the dead flowers because there were fewer and fewer of them.
This process reminds me of what it means to grow in Christ. As Christians, we are like those flower boxes. They are planted, watered, and given food to grow. Eventually, they produce flowers of effectiveness and beauty for the world to see. But, the inner thoughts of our hearts and wrong actions that are not totally pure cause some petals to dry up and they need to be snipped off so that the nourishment from the vine (God) can cause the entire bouquet to remain as beautiful and healthy as possible. This is called sanctification.
Too often Christians do not take this process as seriously as they should. The dead and wilting flowers are left on and the closer others get to them, the more those ugly blemishes show. I truly believe that that is why too many Christians are called hypocrites. They don't cherish the pruning process and just leave the dead blooms caused by their sins to dwell among the healthy flowers.
The common misunderstanding in the church and in the world as it looks at Christians is that Jesus Christ only came to save us from something not for something. It is absolutely true that He did come to earth to be the door through which we can enter into a right relationship with the Creator of the Universe, the God above all gods and the everlasting, all loving Father. BUT, He also came to give us life...... true , abundant life here on earth. That is not a life without challenges, problems, and heartaches because we live in a fallen world BUT it is a life that above all is filled with all of the fruit of the Holy Spirit....love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Through constant pruning, watering, and fertilizing of our inner being, we are given HOPE! We are saved from our old nature and where that progression of sin would take us and we are saved for producing the most beautiful, flower filled life possible here on earth and given the sure promise of heaven in the future!
Have a good day, Love, Sue
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