I love to be surrounded by nature. Long walks in our large arboretum-style public park revive my soul and reconnect me with a sense of what is good, honest, eternal, and God-created. Every time I visit the park, I conclude I should do it more often. This then leads me into admiring others' landscaping in their yards on the way home and thinking about how I would like to have such well-tended greenery at my own home to give it a park-like feel. I give up on this idea pretty quickly, though!
Although I appreciate the presence of plants and trees, I am very unskilled at growing and maintaining them. Even some of the hardiest perennials have inexplicably withered under my care with no reappearance the following spring. As we transition from April to May, I am looking at my flower pots from last spring - the ones that were given to me filled with a beautiful variety of vegetation already nurtured and blooming - and wondering if I dare hope and invest in a new round of growth this year? You see, I am aware of my non-green thumb, and logic tells me to conserve my resources and not to give time, energy, and money to cultivating my own plants. It would just be wasteful, fruitless, and frustrating. Reason and experience tell me I'm better off focusing my attention elsewhere. But still, I wish...I wonder... There are many analogies I could draw from my experience with growing (or not growing) houseplants. One particular verse from the passage in 1 Peter that stands out to me, though, is at the end when it describes how we are born anew in Christ: "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God." (1 Peter 1:23) This reference to imperishable seed caught my attention. What if I could plant with seeds that were imperishable? Then, no matter what I did, however many or grievous mistakes I made in the care of my plants, they could always be restored to health again? I imagine the brittle brown leaves I forgot to water or the puffy, yellow leaves I lovingly over-watered slowly transforming back into the vivid, nourished green they were intended to be - over and over, time and again, restoration and a fresh start. This, I think to myself, sounds a lot like grace! Through Christ we are given the gift of grace that lives and endures, as the verse says, through all kind of trials and circumstances. As Paul's letter to the Romans explains, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 5:37-39) From Paul's message here we can infer that neither can our own sinfulness separate us from the love of God as demonstrated through Christ's sacrifice which has imparted grace to us. There is no sin in our lives so great that God's grace through Christ will not heal our brokenness, wash us clean, and make us new. This is the gift of repentance and restoration. This is the gift of imperishable seed that blooms again and again. And thank goodness! We have this assurance that gives us not only hope for ourselves, but the ability to live and endure all kinds of circumstances through the help of Christ, the Word of God, the author and perfecter of our faith. It is this sense of gratitude and this assurance of our capacity to endure that allows us as followers of Christ to give of ourselves to others with a generosity of spirit that points to our Creator God. By sharing radical love with others through acts of kindness, justice, and hospitality, we are glorifying God and helping to spread the imperishable seeds of hope in Christ. "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart." (1 Peter 1:22) Because of grace, we can be "purified" in our faith. If we are obedient to God's commands for our lives and the reality of Christ crucified, it will create a new heart in us that is capable of sincere love for others. As followers of Christ, we are called to "love one another deeply, from the heart" as he did, and we are capable of it through his spirit which lives in us. It is this love that transforms the world. In my current state as a gardener, I know that the plants I tend will wither and die. They will not bear fruit. They are perishable, and I am not adequately skilled for the task of caring for them. Likewise, in my human state, my ability to love others is limited. Try as I might, my human love inevitably dries up and withers to a state of being shallow, selfish, and insincere. I may start with the best of intentions, but they will ultimately fail me, and I will come up short in a time when more love is needed. Do I have experiences of genuine love for others? Absolutely! But loving others deeply and from the heart is an exhausting, painful, discouraging, and unsustainable experience without the help of God through Christ. If I only draw on my limited human abilities to love others, my efforts will come to nothing, and any growth that comes of it will fade and pass away. As Jesus says in the gospel of John, "Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:4-5) If we instead draw on the imperishable seed, the deep well, the living and enduring Word of God which is Christ Jesus, we will have the ability to truly love others deeply and from the heart. Though people will disappoint us, hurt us, turn us away, we will be able to love them sincerely anyway. Though we are pulled in many directions and distracted by our own selfish desires, we will be able to love them deeply anyway. Though loving others can be demanding on our time, energy, and resources, through Christ we will find we always have more to give. And our shared experiences of this love will transform us, those we are loving, and indeed the whole world until it reflects the restored beauty of the image of God. This spring as we tend our gardens, flower pots, and houseplants - or maybe just admire others' from afar - may we remember to tend our inner selves as well. Let's plant the imperishable seeds of Christ in our hearts and minds so that God's deep and abundant love will overflow from our spirit and spread the seed of His saving grace wherever we go. And if we stumble along the way, let us return to God with repentant hearts and rejoin the vine of Christ to be renewed and replanted. How wonderful to imagine the beautifully transformed life this will create here on Earth and the beauty of a life perfectly restored with God in eternity! Thanks be to God! What spiritual practices help you tend to your inner self? How are you planting imperishable seeds in your life? Do you have times when you have struggled to love others deeply, from the heart? How has your faith helped you love others? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to share them here or on the Contact page.
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AuthorRachel is a wife, mom, and follower of Christ. She is active in lay leadership in the United Methodist Church. Archives
October 2017
Categories© Rachel Yochum and Bible Bridge Ministry, 2017. All rights reserved.
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