Beauty for Ashes

Recently in a ministry time in Kansas City during one of my classes, the instructor asked us to just wait and ask the Lord to show us something.   The first thing I saw was a poppy.  You know the fake kind, like the veteran's give out for donations and you hang from your rear view mirror.  At least my mom always did that.

I wondered "Why a poppy?" and then the next picture that came to mind was one that I had recently seen on facebook.  My friends Smitty and Donna Brewer had gone to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day and posted this incredible picture of poppies that overlooked the fields where so many had died for our freedom and the deliverance of the world from a horrible dictator.
I found out later through researching this that poppies were prevalent in the fields because disasters and wars had unearthed buried poppy seeds from decades before.  It was the bombs, and the digging of trenches and even the burial of their dead soldiers that caused the land to be disturbed and the seeds that came up to the light were then able to grow and flourish.  Evidently the poppy seeds can survive in the ground for up to 100 years but until they have light to grow they remain dormant.  It was because of this, that they began to identify the poppy as a symbol for the veterans who gave their lives for freedom.

I did not know all of this detail at the time the Lord was ministering to me, but I did picture the poppies. And then what came to my mind was a poem that God had used in my life, way back in my youth to call me into urban ministry.   I grew up in the country and yet knew from early on I would be ministering in the inner cities.  I did not initially know that would be in another country.

I began to recite this poem, I had memorized as a youth. (to the best of my memory).  But here it is complete.

Obedience
By George MacDonald
(1824-1905)
I said: “Let me walk in the fields.”
He said: “No, walk in the town.”
I said: “There are no flowers there.”
He said: “No flowers, but a crown.”
I said: “But the skies are black;
There is nothing but noise and din.”
And He wept as He sent me back –
“There is more,” He said; “there is sin.”
I said: “But the air is thick,
And fogs are veiling the sun.”
He answered: “Yet souls are sick,
And souls in the dark undone!”
I said: “I shall miss the light,
And friends will miss me, they say.”
He answered: “Choose tonight
If I am to miss you or they.”
I pleaded for time to be given.
He said: “Is it hard to decide?
It will not seem so hard in heaven
To have followed the steps of your Guide.”
I cast one look at the fields,
Then set my face to the town;
He said, “My child, do you yield?
Will you leave the flowers for the crown?”

Then into His hand went mine;
And into my heart came He;
And I walk in a light divine,
The path I had feared to see.

As I reflected on this, I began to picture all the loss that I had experienced and known through the years in ministry.  Young people who had died way too soon.  People who prospered for a while but then turned away from God...Un-fulfilled desires and dreams...disappointments in life...broken relationships....misunderstandings....  

I began to weep before the Lord.  Releasing my hurt, loss, and tears.  And just as quickly as that came to me, the Lord began to show me the poppies that grew in the place of difficulties.   The beauty that God brings forth in the place of the dying.  He does give beauty for ashes.   He does cause something of life to spring up in the place that has known pain, sacrifice and death.

It is a principle of the Kingdom of God, though one we do not often like to ponder.  We don't like the disturbances, the pain, the trials but God is working in and through our circumstances to bring forth His life in us.   "We are pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." I Corinthians 4:9-11

I have no regrets to have followed the Lord, only regret for the times I did not walk in full obedience. I actually know that I was saved from a lot more pain and trouble than I would have experienced if I had not been redeemed.    So my hand is still in His and I still walk in the path He has set before me and will continue to do so by His grace.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Leaving Facebook and Why