The Flowers

One day earlier this week Princess decided to pick a flower off of one of the day lilies. I was fine with her picking a flower. From time to time, we let her pick our flowers for enjoyment. This time however, she picked a bloom with 9 other buds on it that had not bloomed yet. This made me sad. There were nine other flowers that could have matured and that we could have enjoyed at some point later. Yet because they were picked too early, they instead died.

This made me think of the Father, and about how we probably don't let some things mature like they should. One example is a baby Christian. When we are content to allow the mature leaders to do all of the work, we don't allow the baby Christians to mature and become beautiful flowers themselves. Another example would be when the less mature Christian is "picked" by deceit and believes lies that he was not created to believe. John 15:5 says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing." Well, because of Princess's mistake, I made the observation that a branch cannot separate itself from the vine. Someone must pick it, nature could sever it, but there is nothing it can do on its own other than not be fed by the vine. I think then in the John 15 example, we must train ourselves to hear the Father's voice and only His, so that we do NOT believe the lies Satan throws our way causing us to wither and die and be separated from the vine. The bible says the only way to remain in Him, to bear fruit and flowers ;) is to know His commands - know what the bible says.

Can you think of some other spiritual examples?