Lifting Up A Snapdragon
Psalms 147 (ESV)
1 Praise the LORD!
For it is good to sing praises to our God;
for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting.
2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
6 The LORD lifts up the humble;
he casts the wicked to the ground.
Our experiment planting Snapdragons last year
turned out to be a beautiful success for our flower garden. My
wife Lisa and I decided we would plant them again. We began
the process of planting new Snapdragons.
Things were going well, quickly digging holes,
removing the young plants from the plats, placing them in the newly dug
holes and filling up the gaps with fresh soil; we got into a routine.
By the thirtieth plant we got careless and broke one of the stems
holding up the plants first tender blossom in our dig, separate, plant
and fill routine. Thirty-five healthy young Snapdragons reaching for the
sun and one broken blossom, bent over pointing towards the ground, a
casualty of our carelessness. Being the garden pessimist of the
back-yard garden team, I was waiting for the young blossom to die and
fall off in the days to come.
A week later, on a Sunday, I visited my broken
Snapdragon to see if the blossom had fallen off yet, but I saw the
flower facing the sun, again. Though the stem was still broken,
its flower was healed as it faced the sun, again. It was as if
some invisible gardener had "lifted up" the beautiful blossom on the
broken stem to rebuke my pessimism.
Often we have experienced brokenness because of our
own carelessness and thoughtless reliance upon routine. Sometimes
it is at the hands of others who were equally careless with words or
actions. The world may seem like it was waiting for our hopes and
dreams to be destroyed because we have been broken, but for those of us
who have struggled to keep our eyes fixed upon the Son, the invisible
gardener of our souls has lifted us up and healed us, again and again.
We may still bear some of the scars of our brokenness, but we no less
blossomed in His light. For this we can sing praises to our God.
II Corinthians 4:9 (ESV)
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing
power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but
not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not
forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body
the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in
our bodies.
by Pastor John
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