Life lessons from the flower garden

I've learned so much from working in my flower garden, lately.  The Holy Spirit is just flowing and I can hardly contain myself.  I love it when I've fertilized the ground of my mind so the Holy Spirit can sow and grown in my spirit.  Why don't I do more of this?  Ah, but alas...that is for another time.
     While out doing the mindless, totally wonderful task of deadheading all the flowers the other day, God whispered this little nugget into my spirit.  It totally made my day!  To think, I (we) have a God who so loves us, He will give us little bits of wisdom in seemingly mundane tasks - we just have to be willing to listen and believe.
     He was showing me that every beautiful flowering plant, in order to keep producing its beautiful flowers, must be deadheaded and that deadheading is a perfect analogy of our lives. We have a beauty impregnated within us when we give our lives to Christ - and He came so we can have newness of life. Old things are passed away (deadheaded, removing guilt, shame, loneliness, hopelessness, sorrow, & pain) and all things are new (new blooms, new flowers, new beauty, new life, new joy, new freedom, new hope). 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
     After the deadheading process, which is throwing off all that baggage and renewing our minds everyday in the newness of Christ (Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.), we need to water and feed.
     With flowers, I used to just get out the hose and water them, never considering the incredible amount of energy it takes to produce flowers.  Needless to say, my success level at growing stunning, beautiful, flowing flowers was dismal, at best.  It wasn't until I sought the advise of my friends and gardening experts (The Wardell Family at Huerfano Garden and Nursery) that I found plant food is necessary to sustain that level of production.  What a difference that made!!!
     Another life analogy - we need two things to survive physically on this earth:  water and food.  Water is the life blood of our physical being and the Holy Spirit is our life connection to the ways of the Lord, revealed through His word.  John 4:14 says but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. Eternal life, never thirsting, always full to overflowing because our cup overflows.
     Then the food - we cannot live on bread alone.  Matthew 4:4 says Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every WORD that comes from the mouth of God. We must have God's Word to give us sustenance, life, abundance, and strength to carry on, to walk this walk of love in Jesus.
     ALL of this is for only one purpose - to produce beauty and love towards those who cross our paths.  After all, what is the point of living this life if it isn't to show Jesus at every turn.  I have a confession to make.  I've not always produced beauty in my life.  I've looked like a neglected plant that was supposed to flower and bring joy and love into other's lives but was sagging, drooping and overall unattractive to be around.  But when I've neglected the time with my Father in Heaven - the one who waters my soul and gives me strength through His Word, I have no energy to be love.  I'm selfish which causes anger, backbiting, gossiping, jealousy, envy and all those other things we see in others and don't like.  I don't like who I am when I've not sought Him with every breath.
     But He is so faithful and so redeeming.  Just like any loving mom or dad, when our children want to spend time with us, we want to shower them with the desires of their hearts.  And He does!!!  But our sole purpose is on this earth is to portray who He REALLY is.  Love.  The Beatles really did have it right - "All you need is LOVE".  The Love of Christ!
     So, embrace the deadheading (shedding the old ways and taking on the new ways of Christ) and fill yourself with food (the Bible) and water, Living Water!  We weren't made to do this alone.  We have a friend in Jesus.  May I always, from this moment forward, show that love......my old selfishness is washed away.
      I'll conclude with the Love Chapter - 1 Corinthians 13
 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.