Consider the lilies

 

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 
Luke 12:27

            Ten years ago, someone gave me a pot of lilies as a gift. Once the flowers had wilted, I planted the bulbs into an old, empty pot.

            The following spring, to my utter shock and amazement, there it was a pot of the most beautiful lilies I had ever seen. You see, I had planted the bulbs and forgotten about them. Perhaps the real gift wasn’t just the lilies, but that they came from where I least expected. From what I had thought was empty.

            Anyways, now I wait every year. And yet, the joy never disappoints, and the miracle remains just as wondrous.  For months, that pot looks like nothing. Just soil. Simply silent and still. People walk past it, unaware that deep beneath the surface, life awaits.

Then, every spring, on one special morning, it happens.

            A sudden, almost shocking burst of majestic purple-pink bloom. The showiest of flowers. Regal. Glorious. Impossible to ignore. And just like that, my heart lifts. Joy spills over. And I remember something sacred.

Jesus said, “Consider the lilies.”

Not just admire them but to consider them.

Pay attention to how they live. Learn from them. Maybe even trust like them ?

They do not labour. They do not spin.

            They simply are. Rooted in the quiet confidence that God will clothe them in splendour when the time is right. They bloom just once, then die back. But they are not gone. Their beauty is not lost but just hidden for a season.

            Like them, we too go through hidden seasons. Silent winters, when it feels like nothing is happening. But underground, in ways I cannot see, God is preparing something glorious.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” 
Ecclesiastes 3:1

My job is not to strive, not to panic, but to remain rooted. He will bring the bloom.

Even Solomon, the richest, most adorned king couldn’t match the beauty God gives to a lily.

And me? I am worth far more to Him.

So, I will wait.

And I will trust.

Because,

 “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6