The Tough Flower in my Garden

By DiAne Gates –

SCRIPTURE: “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

Summer before last, I purchased a new variety of zinnias, the miniature bushy ones. They bloomed all season in a plethora of colors, draping their smiling faces over the bricks of my backdoor flowerbed.

Then winter swooped in. Early and with great gusto. Caught by surprise, I did not have the opportunity to pull up the spent annuals and mulch the bed for the coming spring.

To my delight, when spring arrived, the warm soil became home for a new crop of miniature zinnias that needed no help from me. And when the harsh Texas winter was followed by the most severe drought we’d experienced in decades, those tough little plants thrived and bloomed in even greater abundance than the year before.

Now I’m a quick study in the gardening department. I purchased three packages of their larger cousins to frame these border darlings. Those seeds also produced hardy plants with spectacular blossoms in red, purple and yellow, all summer long. While my plumerias and roses, orchids and daisies struggled to maintain life in the 110 plus afternoon heat, the $2.50 packages of zinnia seeds flourished and embellished our landscape with vivid color.

One pleasant fall afternoon, I sat in my yard swing, the spent zinnia heads in my lap, and removed seeds from each dried blossom. Every flower produced at least fifty or more seeds. What a harvest! Now that I had learned the secret of this tough flower of garden annuals, I envisioned flowerbeds this spring that would explode into patches of brilliant color.

In Genesis 1:29 God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth. . . ”

I looked at the bags of seeds I’d collected and thanked God for His multiplied provision for the next year’s garden, but asked forgiveness for countless seeds of His goodness I’ve wasted through the years, both in my garden and in my life.

In times of abundance, I’ve taken God’s blessings for granted and foolishly squandered the gifts He poured out on me. But when hard times come, and they always do, I’m quick to faint and cry for His help.

I’ve become like a hothouse plant that needs constant care from the elements of life. God places me in difficult situations to develop in me the hardiness and colorful beauty of a zinnia—able to thrive in all conditions. His desire is that I develop the ability to bloom for Him in every season, so that like that tough flower in my garden, He can multiply the harvest of my life.

Father in Heaven, help me remember when trials and hard times come You have allowed them in order to develop in me the strength, courage, and endurance that transforms me into the image of Christ Jesus as I trust You—from faith to faith.

Oh How He Loves

By Makenzie Allen –

When I was little, I didn’t really get the concept of Jesus dying for me. He’s God right? That means He should be able to beat the bad guys, He’s indestructible. What I didn’t realize is that it was a choice. Jesus chose to die for us so we could be clean in the sight of God.

Can you imagine waking up in the morning and knowing you were going to die that day? That your closest friends were going to turn their backs on you and trade you for money? They would deny that they ever knew you and watch as you breathed your last. This was Jesus’ reality. He gave his friends unconditional love, and they turned away from Him. What amazes me about this is that we expect our friends to take our hand and be with us every step of the way, when the God of the universe did not even find that kind of companionship.

Jesus chose to go through complete abandonment, and death, for us. Now I’m sure your thinking, this is just the classic story of Jesus. Not quite. When you think of one of your closest friends, do you think of someone with redeeming qualities? A friend is someone who’s got your back, someone who cares about what’s going on in your life. So what about Judas, or Peter? One handed Him over for crucifixion, the other denied Him. I’ve had friends I look up to, friends that encourage me, friends that I encourage, and friends who aren’t really who I thought they were. But if my friends turned against me I would be devastated. So why is it that Jesus gave in to men He could easily overpower? I wouldn’t want to give up my life for people who did not appreciate me.

Another childhood misconception I had about God was that my parents could protect me better than He could. One night I was in my room, scared from a nightmare. Walking quickly to my parent’s room, I tapped my dad on the shoulder and told him I was afraid.

My mom rolled over to face me and said, “It’s ok, Jesus will protect you.”

My response had been to put my hand on my hip and say, “What’s he gonna do? He’s just a baby away in a manger!”

Since then I’ve come to see Jesus as my protector. I can walk through my faith knowing that God will be the friend who gives me what everyone longs for; love that isn’t contingent on what they’ve done or who they are.

So that’s not the end of the story.

After Jesus’ friends left Him to face crucifixion alone, He conquered death itself and did another remarkable thing. He forgave. Instead of leaving earth immediately to go home to His Father, Jesus went and saw His disciples. These men who rejected Jesus were shown the kind of love everyone talks about and longs for. If only everyone knew that the love they crave is easily given. There are no requirements you have to reach in order to gain the love and support of God.

So yes, I once questioned why Jesus died for us, I once pondered why He protected better than my parents, but I think I’ve found the answer. He loves us enough to die for our sins, and protects us through our greatest fears.

Oh how He loves.

What’s Your Sleep Cycle?

By Charles W. Page, MD –

The 24-hour circadian rhythm of homo sapiens has baffled biologists for years. Sleep is one of those pieces of human behavior that doesn’t seem to fit their evolutionary puzzle. Human beings tend to display monophasic patterns of rest—sleeping for one large continuous time period. This seems to contradict most modern theories of evolution.

When followed to its logical conclusion, evolution appears to suggest that sleep is a bad idea. According to the principles of natural selection, “those that snooze—lose!” If animals are not constantly aware of the potential threats around them, their survival is threatened. And those that do not survive fail to transmit their genes to the next generation.

Several creative theories have been promoted to help explain away this basic dilemma of sleep cycles in “evolved” humans. One maintains that humankind has only been conditioned to rest for a continuous period of the circadian cycle. It contends that man is still intrinsically geared to sleep like their more primordial ancestors and can still be reconditioned back into taking multiple small “cat naps” through the circadian cycle.

One of the champions of the polyphasic theory, Dr. Claudio Stampi, recommends taking multiple intermittent naps during the day instead of sleeping continuously for eight hours at night. His theory claims this pattern allows individuals to maximize their productivity and potential during a 24-hour period. In other words—sleep less and do more. Polyphasic sleeping is an alternative sleep pattern being researched as an option for those who need to function amidst sleep deprivation (i.e., NASA astronauts, long distance sailboat racers and soldiers).

For those of you whose eyelids are still open after absorbing these superfluous and slumberous ideas, let me suggest to you a simpler approach to rest. (One way or another—I did promise to help you sleep!) Instead becoming a polyphasic sleeper to maximize your productivity, why not surrender control to the One who created you? Sleep was God’s idea. God created you to release control of your frustrations, worries, fears and schedules and to fall asleep in His arms. Someone once said that “sleep is God’s contrivance to give to man what he cannot do for himself while he is awake.” By faith, learn to put your trust in a God who protects and provides for you as you rest.

God could have fashioned your circadian rhythms similar to other animals on this planet. For example, God did not create you with the sleeping habits of giraffes or elephants, which slumber for less than four hours per day. You were not created to always be on the alert for potential threats to your security. On the other hand, God did not create you like a bear that hibernates for several months out of the year. Your sleep cycles could have been shaped similar to a dolphin. Dolphins sleep with one-half of their brain “on” and the other side turned “off.” Unlike dolphins, your brain was not created to multitask while you rest.

God uniquely made you to “turn off” when you turn in. God wonderfully made you to surrender your life into His hands. Trust Him. He’s got your back!

Invincible

By Elaine James –

During a weekend retreat recently, I asked some teens to rewrite ‘Victorious Christian Living’ in their own words. They chose two phrases: ‘Truthful living’ and ‘staying closer to God.’

I quoted this verse: “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3 NIV).

Next I asked them to rephrase ‘Divine Power,’ and they came up with ‘a strength that is unexplainable.’

Look at these words that they identified as keeping them from such ‘Devine Power:’ loneliness, discouragement, worry, anger, worthlessness, unforgiveness, procrastination, doubt, fear, guilt, temptation, resentment, failure, jealousy, lack of confession, and lack of prayer.

Which of these words are keeping you from truthful living and receiving God’s ‘strength that is unexplainable?’

One of the teens shared a personal struggle with unforgiveness in a relationship. When she decided to forgive, she said “I realized that this is a key to life and when I realized how important it is to forgive, I felt invincible.” Another girl admitted to a lack of confession and prayer.

I had a simple outline for the weekend, but it became evident that God was filling in the lesson with more detail from our discussions. One more verse was added to the lesson “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10 NIV). We agreed that going to the cross with a humble heart brought an incredible promise from God that “He will lift you up.”

We recounted the story of Jonah and the fish. We found that Jonah’s word was “fear” and because he had fear, he did not experience “Victorious Christian Living.” When Jonah was in the belly of the fish, he finally humbled himself, acknowledged God’s divine power, confessed and prayed. Once God instructed the fish to vomit Jonah onto land, he felt “invincible” enough to do what God had asked Him to do in the first place.

Our final conclusion was that if you choose to humble yourself, pray for divine power and live out the three key spiritual disciplines (forgiveness, confession, prayer), you can be “invincible.”

My prayer is that you choose the word or words that are keeping you from being invincible with God. Remember that becoming unconquerable is not an overnight task. It requires time and effort.

PRAYER: The pressure in life sometimes is too much. At times I want to run, like Jonah. Help me to remember the past and how You have rescued me. Thank You for the promise to never leave me.

“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 8:38-39).

Cut and Dry

By Rhonda Rhea –

I confess, I’ve done a bad thing. Logic warned me not to do it, but I did it anyway. I cut my own bangs. Every time I take the scissors into my own hands, I promise myself I’ll never do it again. That’s because I never fail to end up looking at little like Star Trek’s Spok, minus the ears. And yet this is definitely no way to live long and prosper.

When am I going to get it? I’m just not a skilled bang-cutter. When I try, I’m operating miles outside my area of expertise.

The gal who cuts my hair, on the other hand, knows what she’s doing around a pair of hair-cutting scissors. She can trim, gel, clip and mousse with the best of them. And she’s pretty adamant about me staying away from hair self-service. She knows whatever mess I make—and I will make a mess—she’ll have to straighten out.

Isn’t it strange that I would take the scissors into my own hands, knowing my past haircutting record? I’ve thought about it, and I don’t care how badly I needed an operation, I’m quite sure I would never snatch the scalpel from the surgeon’s hand with a, “Oh, let me do that! I saw an appendectomy on the Health Channel one time. I can so do this!”

In an eternal perspective, I guess my hair—even my appendix—is not as important as it may seem. As a matter of fact, hair and body parts are simple compared to running a life. Yet how many times have I snatched the controls on that too?

When I take control of my own life, I make a mess every time. I’m operating miles outside my area of expertise. I end up whining to the Father, “Lor-or-ord, can you fix this, plea-ea-ease?” Wouldn’t it be easier to simply be obedient in the first place?

We please God and show our love for Him by “surrendering the scissors,” so to speak, in complete obedience. Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love me, keep my commands.”

Then in John 15:9-11, Jesus tells us that we find real joy as we’re pleasing God, keeping his commands: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

Joy. And not just any joy. It’s a joy that’s complete. It’s real life. Even a longer life. Proverbs 10:27 says, “The fear of the LORD adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.”

It’s a sobering truth.

Still, did it have to say “cut short”? Just another reminder I’m spending the next couple of weeks suffering severe bang humiliation.

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