Be All There

The gloriosa daisies growing beside my front porch some years ago were stunning – tall, with large multi-colored daisy-faces of orange, brown and yellow. Visitors commented on them and relatives carted some of the perennials home to their own gardens.

But there was a problem with those flowers - we never knew exactly where they were going to come up! By the next year they had jumped a little to the left of where they had been planted, or even invaded the middle of a nearby flower grouping.

It didn’t matter so much to me that the daisies couldn’t be counted on to reappear in the same spot as before, but someone who was looking for true order and harmony in their landscaping design would find their plans continually rearranged!

I once heard Twila Paris, contemporary Christian singer/songwriter, emphasize a familiar piece of advice: “Bloom exactly where you are planted.”

Sometimes it’s so hard to do, isn’t it? It’s exciting and showy to jump around and invade others’ turf and send shoots out toward greener grass… in occupations and relationships and interests and, yes, sometimes even in marriage and singleness. Sunday’s sermon addressed 1 Cor. 7: 8-16, and I’d like to add verse 17:

“And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life” (The Message).

As missionary martyr Jim Elliot once said, "Wherever you are, be all there." God is not looking for restless roots and wandering thought-tendrils and feelings that are blown off-course by the slightest breeze. He’s looking for us in exactly the place He planted us, today, and the next season, and the next.

Can we trust Him to design the landscape of our lives, to do any transplanting that needs done, and to tend to every detail of our situation? Can we hold our position without whining or pining, convinced that He’s put us exactly where our bloom matters most?

I think a little more faith in the Gardener would make us more contented plants, settle us more firmly into the soil, and help us to “live and obey and love and believe” exactly where He’s planted us.