Consider the lilies: No seriously, stop, sit down, forego your next ten tasks, ten minutes, slow down… and consider.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, Yet I tell you Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of them. -Mark 12
Our world is forcing our hand, this stopping. And like some kind of curse, we rue the day we are stopped to muse. I’m making some of you look up words to slow you down even more!! I love flowers, for years I maintained a large landscape of flowers. The details of colors, textures, aromas are all evidence of an artwork that goes beyond chance. It demonstrates the attention to detail and the blessing it is when creation could be so much more pragmatic.
The Showy Ladyslipper pictured above(MN State Flower), the Creator is just showing off. The colors, the shape, tongue, flaps, bowl, strips, dots, hairs… Solomon had money, but he didn’t have clothes like that. Why does God care enough to put so much effort into one little thing? And then 1,000 other little things as well. Good question.
This chapter of Mark is all about the issues that make us anxious. We live in times that could make people anxious. But Mark is reminding us that if God takes care of the way flowers are clothed, flowers that are here today and dead tomorrow, how much more does he care about the details of your life and mine? Beloved, I pray that if you are anxious, you could stop and consider the flowers of the field. Embrace being embraced by a God who is exceedingly more interested in the details of our life than the beauty you see above.
As you step in the piles of panic our world is leaving, I pray you have the eyes of faith that creates a pause for people and they wonder about the hope you have in Christ. We are dressed up, and we have somewhere to go!!
Truth, Grace, and Time 