After five decades of living on the farm, my folks moved to town. They took the basics that they needed, and left me with the daunting task of figuring out what to do with the rest. My parents had gone through the Great Depression, so they had firmly lived by the motto “Don’t throw it out until it’s worn out.” When I began to clean out the basement, I discovered lots of “stuff” apparently not yet deemed to be “worn out.”
Stuck in a corner behind a mountain of boxes I found a pot of plastic flowers, still intact in their now-faded dusty foam holder. The church ladies’ group had given them to my mom some forty years prior when she was recuperating from back surgery.
I chuckled as I recalled how conscientiously my dad had watered that bouquet of plastic blooms. Though he was much more in tune with what corn and soybeans needed in order to grow, my farmer father really tried to care for that pot of plastic posies. In fact, he watered them so faithfully that puddles of water began to seep out of the container. I think that at that point he finally figured out the futility of his efforts.
I think that sometimes my reactions to circumstances in my life are about as futile as my dad’s efforts to keep those flowers “alive”. Someone might say something that offends me, and I worry and fret about that for days on end. Or my hubby, who does so many wonderful things for me, might do one little thing a bit differently than I would have done it. Too often I am guilty of focusing on that one difference, rather than on all the positives. You might say that I’m “feeding” the wrong thing.
But does my doing that really help the situation? No more than the water in my dad’s cup helped the artificial blossoms.
What are we nurturing in our personal lives? Is what we’re doing helping us to grow spiritually? Is it helping to encourage those around us?
I pray that more and more my focus may be on what truly matters and makes a difference, and honors the Lord.
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.” (II Peter 3:18, New International Version)
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Every adversity that comes across our path, whether large or small, is intended to help us grow in some way. If it were not beneficial, God would not allow it or send it, “For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men” (Lamentations 3:33). God does not delight in our sufferings. He brings only that which is necessary, but He does not shrink from that which will help us grow. —Jerry Bridges
We must never forget – if we are to grow in grace, and therefore grow like Christ – that the One we trust, love, and serve is a crucified Savior. To follow Him means taking up the cross, as well as denying ourselves. It means a crucified life. —Sinclair Ferguson
At each stage of [spiritual] growth, more self-denial is required, more painful blows to self, more reckless decision to serve the Lord Christ with consequent abandonment of one’s own life. —Walter Chantry
The right manner of growth is to grow less in one’s own eyes. —Thomas Watson
I am not what I might be, I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be. But I thank God I am not what I once was, and I can say with the great apostle, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” —John Newton
Giving credit where credit is due: