Transitioned back into the green and peaceful countryside
halfway around the world from California. Yes, the wind has a sharp edge and
the sun lacks some of that deep warmth it has in Long Beach. But the daffodils
and tulips are out, the trees are beginning to leaf and the fields are carpeted
in spring green. It’s lovely.
Dusty is sticking close. As we walked her round the woods
last night and again today, we stopped to admire the pocket of primulas which
lies almost hidden along the path. Don commented that though nobody (except
us!) may pause to admire these primulas, they will bloom to the glory of God
anyway. Aha! Theme for today’s blog!
The integrity of these flowers – if in fact flowers can have
integrity! No motivation of impressing anyone. Simply blooming because that is
what they were created to do. I think I’ve written before that the birds do
that, but in fact they often are motivated by the search for a mate or the need
to communicate danger. These primulas, or primroses, or whatever wild flowers
blooming in remote corners of the earth, are just blooming beautiful because.
Because. No more reason than that.
I want to be authentic like that. Honest before God. I am
sure that all my efforts to make myself beautiful for God only serve to obscure
the deep beauty that he has planted in me. My pretenses to be more
compassionate than I truly am. My efforts to be all that I think He wants me to
be – when all he wants is for me to be myself, the myself which is at its deepest
level, not overlaid with self-image or cultural or religious expectations.
How could I ever improve on what God has made me to be? And
yet it’s so hard just to be.
May you and I both be exactly who God made us to be, today
and every day. May we bloom for the pleasure of God, and not for any other
reason.
Just because.
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