I went running with my sweet, eager dog. (Why is it that I can’t be jumpy-excited when I go running, but my dog is beside himself with joy?) Anyway, as I was running, I ran past flowers who smiled back at me. The Lord whispered a question to me. “Why did I make flowers, Mary?” He asked.
I thought about that as I continued to run. All in all, three things came to mind. Flowers are beautiful. Flowers reproduce. Flowers smell amazing. In answering the question, I realized we are all God’s flowers. God desires for us to realize our beauty, by the sheer fact that we were created by Beauty personified. We are beautiful. So many folks miss that. They pay to have their skin elongated, their chests augmented, their lines un-striated, forgetting that God made us beautiful. Sure, we age. But even in that aging, there is beauty.
John 15 is a perfect picture of our reproduction. We grow and reproduce ourselves when we’re connected to the Vine. And we grow more when we are pruned by God’s steady hand. We were created for growth, but so many of us (I’m there too), would rather shrink from the pruning sheers because we’re afraid of living life in a new way. We like the old, dead pieces of ourselves far too much, and we see God’s pruning as a terrible invasion of our need for control. As one who prunes, I know that pruning is absolutely necessary to foster a healthy, growing, reproducing plant. If only I could remember that when the knife is poised at my stalk.
Yesterday on my run, I smelled the intoxicating aroma of honeysuckle. I smiled ear to ear when I smelled it, then followed my nose to the source on the side of the road. I clipped a few tendrils so I could root them at home. Even as I ran, I welcomed the scent, pulling my bouquet to my nose. God has created us to be a delicious, tangible scent to the world. Our effusive love of Jesus should permeate our worlds, causing folks to smile ear to ear. The Bible says we are His fragrance. But sometimes our decay overpowers our scent. May it be that we realize our beauty, grow under the pruning hand of God, and waft His scent wherever we go. Like a good flower should.
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