This time of year is always gorgeous in Eastern Tennessee, but this year with the early spring it is beautiful to see all the flowers out and tress in bloom. East Tennessee is really a special place of God's creation when it is in bloom. Many a time I think that we locals fail to notice it because we are so busy driving by it EVERYDAY. It is like anything that we see everyday, after a time we begin to see it as normal, even if it is exceptional. That can be true of our family, our friends, our neighbors, our church, our job, and thousands of other things, but that is not the topic of today's note.
The flower beds in the yards of East Tennessee are as pretty as anything that you can see in the world. People spend hours getting their rows straight, the bulbs properly ordered, arranged, planted, watered, nourished and blooming. Their beds are extensions of their homes, their lives, and their families. Lots of detail, hard work, and focus which eventually lead to a reward in the end. Their labor is not in vain, and they rejoice in the work of their hands.
Another great source of beauty in East Tennessee are the random wildflowers and patches of wilderness color that we come across. It may be some wild irises, some rhododendron clumps, some random flowers in a grove of shade trees. Many times these displays are just as pretty and as beautiful as the precisely planted and tended ones, yet no one planted, tended or slaved over them. We just get to enjoy the beauty of nature without the work.
I know you are wondering how this relates to the world of Christ by now, so I will cut too the chase. I am not going to talk about the beauty and perfection of God's creation, though I could easily fill up pages about just that. What I thought about when I begin to ponder the above is how we as Christians fall into the same two categories - planted & maintained versus independent & free.
Some Christians were raised in the church. Their parents / family raised them correctly and they did not depart from those teachings and lessons as they got older. They are reflections of a good home life, a well tended and well functioning family, and they are the delight of their parents. Their lives and the lives of everyone around them benefit from the work that was done to correctly plant, tend, water, nourish, and worry during their growth to maturity.
Then we also have those that came to God on their own. Sometimes they sank too the bottom of the human existence before finding they had a God sized hole. Others simply realized that they needed God before a grand descent began. Either way, or some way in between, they came to God and then become equal heirs to the kingdom.
Now this is not a note about which is superior, preferred, or right. Nor am I going to discuss matters along the lines of the workers of the field that got paid the same whether they were hired at 6AM or 3PM. What I am going to point out and discuss is that they are both equally beautiful and both are provided by God for both His pleasure and for the benefit of the kingdom.
Isn't it great that God provides a path to heaven and His will to all. Weather we were watched over and tended by our parents, or we came to God on our own later in life, our beauty is equal, and provided by God, not by human labor be it parental or personal.
Many times we can see where a church may lend itself to one or the other path. Everyone here has always been here and those that are here will stay here, etc, or we were all former alcoholics and prostitutes and all of our body is composed of the same. The truth is both were just as lost before they found God, and God turns both type of lives into His own.
At times there may be a minor advantage to one or the other when it comes to reaching certain others, but the real truth is that we were all planted by God, tended by God, loved by God, nourished by God, and harvested by God. It is not how we were planted or where we serve (be it the court house, the law office, the hospital, the church, the restaurant, the grocery store, the medical office, the computer room, the delivery truck, the lube rack, the landscaping service, the harvest field, or any where else) that really matters, it is who we serve and where we are going that matters.
All our place of service and residence determines is who gets to appreciate the beauty we bring too the world. Have a great day being scenic view of God too the world.
