Every Flower Must Grow Through Dirt

I read a story, and I want to share it with you:

A little girl was walking in a garden when she noticed a particularly beautiful flower. The child admired its beauty and enjoyed its fragrance.

“How lovely!” she exclaimed.

As she gazed on it, her eyes followed the stem down to the soil in which it grew.

“What a shame!” she cried. “This flower is too pretty to be planted in such dirt!”

So she pulled up the plant by its roots and ran to the water faucet to wash away the clinging soil. It wasn’t long until the flower wilted and the plant began to die. The gardener saw what she had done and scolded her.

“You have destroyed my finest plant,” he said.

“But I didn’t like it in that dirt,” whimpered the child.

The gardener replied, “I chose that spot and collected and mixed the soil because I knew that only there it would come to maturity.”

When I read and contemplated on this story, I instantly relate the ‘beautiful flower’ as Christians who are mature in Christ and the ‘dirty soil’ (of course) as troubles that come their ways.  Separate affliction or adversary or hardship or suffering or trouble from Christian life and you will get a wilted and dying ‘flower’. But if you keep the flower in the soil, take care of it and cultivate it – you will get a beautiful ‘flower’. Hendry Ward Beecher writes, “Affliction comes to the believer not to make him sad, but sober; not to make him sorry, but wise. Even as the plow enriches the field so that the seed is multiplied a thousandfold, so affliction should magnify our joy and increase our spiritual harvest.”

…But it is only possible if God is in it: if God be with you.

Hey, you might be in the storm of life. You might be in the lion’s den situation. Your surrounding might be filled with dirt – take heart! Keep your face toward God, the trouble will fall behind you. Even if you die, you shall grow into a beautiful flower in God’s eyes. It is the good dirty soil that makes the flower grows. God may use troubles that come to your way because He knew that only when you have been through it will you come into maturity in Christ. Let the Gardener do His work in you. Keep your faith in Him. Experience His grace in your life. Your troubles may get you closer to Him; that’s the whole point of troubles in Christian life. Yo, every beautiful flowers must grow through dirt!

“Our heavenly Father never takes anything from His children

unless He means to give them something better” (George Müller)

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.