Discover Top Posts Tagged with #flowersarered

So Many Colors In A Flower...

Lately I've felt convicted to keep an open mind. I'll be hashing out a well-picked-over wound with God when he gently requests I re-calibrate my assumptions. He did this, recently, by reminding me of lyrics penned by His great prophet, Harry Chapin.

As I pondered the message of this song, I realized that the baggage I'd been submitting in prayer was actually a lie constructed by seeing my situation through the limits of my experience. I'd essentially been thinking that all flowers were green and red, when in reality there is a whole spectrum out there. I just need to be open to the possibility that there is more. So much more.

I believe God wants us all to be open to that more. Because He is more than we could ever imagine.

It's easy to fall back on a concept of Jesus as a personal savior, a "Buddy Jesus," who comforts me in my tiny troubles. He's a sounding board onto which I can "cast all my cares" (1 Peter 5:7). But to think of him only thus is to place limits on Him, to keep Him small and tame. Loving, for sure, but not particularly powerful. In this I commit the same sin as Peter in the hours before Christ's crucifixion. I deny him.

Then Peter said, "I do not know the man." It was Peter's denial, of course ... I do not even know who he is. It was the denial that Jesus himself had predicted, and the cock raised his beak into the air and crowed just as Jesus had foretold. But is was something else too ... It was a denial, but it was also the truth. Peter really did not know who Jesus was, did not really know, and neither do any of us really know who Jesus is either. Beyond all we can find to say about him and believe about him, he remains always beyond our grasp, except maybe once in a while the hem of his garment. We should never forget that. We can love him. We can learn from him, but we can come to know him only by following him -- by searching for him in his church, in his Gospels, in each other. (Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets)

In the Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis depicts Jesus as a lion, the Mighty Aslan. He is so described in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe:

“Ooh” said Susan.”I’d thought he [Aslan] was a man. Is he -- quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”… ”Safe?” said Mr Beaver …"Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

I am a firm believer that "All Truth is God's Truth." God isn't afraid or insecure. He knows if we refuse to grow complacent in our limited worldview and seek His face in Scripture, in nature, in community, in art, in science, in literature... we will find Him.

There are so many colors in a flower. Let us strive to see every one.

Photo: From 2008. Flowers growing out of the temple wall at the Summer Palace in Beijing.