Faith comes from not knowing the outcome, but resolving to plant anyway.
I had one single hydrangea bloom this year. It was beautiful and I was thrilled to have it, but I have five hydrangea bushes that were covered in blooms last year, so this year’s crop has been disappointing. I had cut blooms in vases all over my house last year and in a season where there was so much ugliness and a worldwide pandemic had us all at home, those blooms felt like daily well wishes from God.
Forces completely out of my hands reminded me that there was still beauty in the world.
Fast forward a year and I have one single bloom. I fed and watered those hydrangeas just like I did last year. We had a late frost, but I carefully covered them up with sheets for protection. I did my best, yet they didn’t bloom.
If you ever want a lesson in humility, nature is where you will find it. Our culture teaches us if we work hard and do our best, we will always succeed and we tend to buy that lie. Ask any farmer if their hard work guarantees good results. I imagine they will be the first to tell you that a lot of what happens to their crops and even their livestock, is out of their hands. It’s no wonder that the farmers I know are some of the most faithful people I have ever met.
Maybe that’s because faith comes from not knowing what the final outcome will be, but resolving to plant anyway.
We don’t tend to like those odds. We tend to prefer a sure thing and we sometimes even avoid anything that we think is not a sure thing. We convince ourselves that we truly control our destiny and we are devastated when something happens, (and it always will), to remind us we do not. That job loss, or illness, or divorce, shakes us to our core. How could something bad possibly happen when we did everything right?
The truth is, we live in a broken world and bad things happen even when we do our very best. That’s how it is on this side of eternity. But, when we keep our focus on Jesus and walk humbly with God, we are able to weather the storms much more easily, remembering that God loves us and there is a plan even when we can’t see it.
We learn to take life one day at a time, one step at a time and we continue to plant, knowing that the next season just may produce a bumper crop. A lone hydrangea reminded me that even though the outcome is out of my hands, I am called to plant anyway. Perhaps you needed reminding too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂