Remember the only thing that changed is your circumstance or situation. You are the same God created, God loved, full of purpose person you were before the shift. How do I know that? The truth of the Bible doesn’t change every time life gets raw, challenging, and totally uncensored. What was truth yesterday is still truth today. You are still who God says you are and God is still good. YES, life gets ugly. The doctor mentions the “C” word in the diagnosis. The husband/wife wants the “D” word. Your children use the “H” word when describing their feelings toward you. None of that is pretty. None of that is attractive. We live in an evil world and sometimes…..That evil attacks us. When it does, the colors fade, the petals fall off, and life gets really challenging.
B U T
That isn’t the end of the story unless you choose it to be. You can certainly get off of the train anywhere it stops. You can choose to lay down right there where the petals fall off and never get back up
B U T
I don’t recommend it and I won’t endorse it, not when I know that isn’t the purpose of the pain or the end of the story
B U T
If you are going to stay on the train for the long haul and not lay down where you fell down, there are some things that you need to learn and apply. I call these “Lessons From a Bloom.”
1. While I am not attracted to the plant itself, the flower (my attraction) is no healthier than the plant it is attached to. In the midst of heartache and disappointment we can attach ourselves to the issues or we can attach to the vine.
I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
Stay attached to your source of life like your life depends on it, because guess what….It does
2. While I am attracted to the petals of the flower, that outward showcase of beauty, it’s really the seed head at the center of the flower that holds the real treasure. You can’t harvest the seed from the flower until the flower dies. The more we die to self the more productive we become at producing fruit. It works something like this: Lisa and I were having this conversation about some art that we both really like. We liked it so much that we wanted to buy the course and reproduce the art. Not only that but we also wanted to engage others to join us. When others see a life of beauty (a life that has put to death some of those not so attractive tendencies), others will want to replicate and they will enlist others to join them in the replication process. That is the seeding process that occurs when we die to self and become alive in Him. Those near death experiences that knock the breath out of us, they are opportunities to cast seed. Beauty attracts and the most beautiful people are those that put flesh to death and begin the process of learning to live on earth like they will live in heaven.
R e S e t
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