As folks who know me can attest, I enjoy photographing
flowers of all kinds. I don’t delight in making or maintaining the garden
itself, but I do love it when I have an opportunity to photograph the flowers
in other folks’ gardens. Fortunately, sweet friends often invite me over to
photograph the beautiful results of their hard work. And my husband and I are
blessed to be able to travel a good bit, too. When we’re “on the road,” we’re
always on the lookout for parks, botanical gardens, plant nurseries, businesses
with flowers out front, hanging basket lining the city sidewalks, courtyard in
the downtown area, small gardens near entrances to the hotels where we stay,
etc.
Although gardens require a good bit of money, time,
attention, and hard work, wildflowers don’t. Quite the contrary! They just
appear in various places and seem to do very well without human intervention. Many
of my favorite “flower photos” are of wildflowers--and also weeds with
beautiful blooms. I even love dandelion blooms and seed heads.
Because of my love of beautiful blooms, these three verses
in Isaiah 40 captured my attention: “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness
is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the
breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass
withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (vv.6-8, New American Standard Bible).
These verses point out how temporal our lives are. Even
though we, like the grasses of the field, bloom and flourish for a time, we
will not be here forever. We, like the grasses, will wither and fade; and those
who pass by where we used to live may scarcely remember us—if at all.
Yet, God, who is eternal, created us for His good pleasure
and lets us live and flourish for a season, as He does the wildflowers and the
grasses of the field. In fact, Jesus referred to the beauty of the grasses of
the field when He was reminding His followers not to worry about what they would
eat or drink or wear. “And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe how the
lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you
that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these.
But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow
is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of
little faith?” (Matthew 6:28-30, NASB).
Thus, we should not worry about our lives, but simply bloom
where God has planted us and let our lives testify to HIS glory and goodness.
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