Flowers: God's Gift

Everything on this earth was created by God. Jesus Christ with the Father and Holy Spirit made everything (Genesis 1:25-27, John 1:3, Colossians 1:16). And how often we take it for granted. Think of the flower, how it is often cheapened as romantic love ornament at Valentine's Day, or to apologize to a woman over a mistake. But flowers aren't to honor a dead saint or cupid's arrows, they are little buds of color. While most of the earth is covered in blue skies, green and grey seas, and brown and black earth, flowers have dazzling array of colors. California Poppies are orange, and stand like mussels praising God. Red roses are like crimson crowns reminding us of Christ's passion. Violets remind us of stars at night, and the One that stood over Bethlehem. Flowers come in such an array of color, and they are made more special because the rest of grass is brown, gold, green, or blue. One can look at field of green, and it is white lilies and the yellow sunflowers that add a riot of color on a canvas of plain color. Flowers are indeed like little paint drops from God's brush, to add some hue to the view.

For men flowers for some time have seemed feminine. What does a man need with a rose? What can a lily mean to man with lance or a lug wrench? It may surprise you to know that God called Himself both, "I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys." (Song of Songs 2:1, Song of Songs is about Bridegroom and Bride, which is Christ and the Church see Revelation 19:7-11). It might interest manly men to know that all the rose and lily are the source of all vegetables, fruit, and garlic, and etc. Each fruit and vegetable comes from either the rose family or the lily family. Thus our sustenance, our food source aside from meat, comes from these two flower families. Even the meat we eat, grazes on dandelions, and other flowers and fruits, and vegetables in the wild. Thus flowers are more than pretty ornaments or pieces of God's canvas on the earth, they feed and keep alive mankind, keep alive His Image on Earth (Genesis 1:26). Flowers power our lives through foods we need, and they enrich our lives with the color they give off. They also remind us of how short our time on this earth is, "The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of our God (Jesus, John 1:1-17, Revelation 19:11-16) stands forever." (Isaiah 40:6). 

Often when someone is ill, sick, or depressed, it is custom to bring flowers to them. Why? Because the aroma it gives off delights the senses and brings oxygen to the room. The Apostle Paul even says in manner of speaking that we smell like flowers or perfume, "For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume (aroma). And who is adequate for such a task as this?" (2 Corinthians 2:15-16). To those brothers and sisters in Christ we are like the scent of the Rose of Sharon and Lily of the Valley, but to the unsaved we are stench of sulfur that awaits their unrepentant souls (Revelation 20:15, John 3:16-18). 

We really should take time to enjoy God's flowers, to stop and as adage says, "smell the roses." I think particularly of a scene in John Adams, the Mini Series, where Adams makes the following remark, "Still, still I am not weary of life. Strangely. I have hope. You take away hope and what remains? What pleasures? I have seen a queen of France with eighteen million livres of diamonds on her person, but I declare that all the charms of her face and figure, added to all the glitter of her jewels, did not impress me as much as that little shrub. [pointing with his walking stick to a small white flower in the field] Now my mother always said that I never delighted enough in the mundane, but now I find that if I look at even the smallest thing, my imagination begins to roam the Milky Way. Rejoice evermore. Rejoice Evermore! It’s a phrase from St. Paul, you fool! REJOICE EVERMORE! I wish that had always been in my heart and on my tongue. I am filled with an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees right here in admiration.” (John Adams, Final Episode, Mini Series, 2008). Let us pray that we do not have to wait until our wintry years to discover as John Adams did, the beauty of God's creation and how it surpasses the pale imitations in art and cinema. Let us make time in our life to walk amongst the flowers, to stand beneath the trees, to listen to the creeks, and to enjoy the faint touch of the wind. Let us "rejoice evermore," in the creation the Godhead has made! Let us not take it for granted, but let us be blessed by it, for amongst it we find a semblance of the Garden of Eden in this chaotic world. Indeed, we were meant to live in a garden, perhaps that is why we find God's peace in His created nature. Amen.