What's the difference between a beautiful prize winning rose and a mutant dwarf of its kind? Care. Nurturing. Protection. Sustaining life-giving water. And pruning. Such is the case between my roses last year and my roses this year from the very same bush.
All last summer, my coral rose bush and peace rose bush bloomed profusely. Even this spring the bushes were abundant with blossoms. Then it happened. Morning glories climbed up the stems and choked them. I'm talking covered in twisting vines. The bermuda grass that I had chopped out and held at bay all summer last year, jumped the cedar divide and grew beneath it and surrounded the bushes. Dandelions, broadleaf grass, anonymous weeds and dead leaves clustered in the midst of the once immaculately tended bed. Lack of rain and my neglect to water, left my bushes thirsting in a drought of the vinedresser's tending. Failure to prune off the old, and make way for the new left dried blossoms and dried stems to sucker what goodness the ground offered to keep the bushes thriving. The result was a dwarfed version of last year's roses. They look like minature tea-roses. Each bud was the size of a Junebug. In fact some are smaller.
What did this tell me?
As a Christian, if I do not weed out the broadleaf grass that crowds out my time spent with Jesus and God's Word, I will end up producing smaller and smaller roses for His glory. If I do not yield to God's chastening and pruning of yesterday's accomplishments and successes, I will succumb to pride and arrogance and find myself following my own futile way instead of the Lord's. If I allow the dandelions of life to take root and grow and reproduce more of the same, I will forever be entangled in their roots that rob me of sustenance and life-giving water for my soul and mind. If I do not tend to the soil in which I grow and keep it tilled, fertilized and watered with prayer and communion with Jesus, I will find myself slowly drying up, and eventually producing nothing. Can a wild rose bloom without the touch of the Master's hand? Can a tame one blossom without His blessing? selahV
[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]