Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday January 4, 2006

You never know just what a New Year holds, other than the will of God, and the rich blessings of God's said blessing often being missed due to misunderstanding just how He is working in our life.

I often teach on the fact that what or who is going on inside of you is more important than your location. In one of my direst circumstances a dear Sunday School teacher in our church sent a card to me. The card had a picture of high prison walls, guard towers and a rough stone pavement. Between a crack in the pavement a gorgeous flower was pushing its way toward the sky. I opened the card and is simply said,

"Bloom where you are planted."

How much of our life do we waste while we wait on a chance to bloom someplace else, anyplace else, except where we are planted?

I read of a man in China who was arrested and imprisoned for worshiping Jesus Christ. In the prison they put him to work in the cess pool area, an area so filthy that most prisoners died from being around the disease and the horrible smell, a smell so bad that it got into your skin and nothing could remove the stench. Even the guards did not want to work around the men assigned to this hell on earth as one called it. To be sure the man complained at first. He prayed fervently at first. He fell into deep depression at first. And then he accepted the gift the Lord had given to him. Because he worked in the cess pool area, he was left pretty much alone by both guards and fellow prisoners. He learned the beauty of really thinking on the things of God, of being delivered from the mindless chatter of most people, of not having to stop a sublime thought and listen to someone babble on about the sad state of things, or the awful morals of the young, or even worse listen to a blow by blow account of a recent tonsillectomy!

One day as he worked in this horrid place the thought popped into his mind, "I loved my garden. I miss it so. Could it be God's purpose for me grow, to blossom in this pit?" He decided to ask Christ to teach him how to grow on the inside in this at least human forsaken place. In time he became such a deep, powerful man, that his captors came to him for help, as did other prisoners when they could. He not only bloomed where he was planted, he conducted a personal ministry!

While others whined and complained, he permitted Christ to grow a garden of forgiveness in heart, a garden of compassion, compassion for even those who brutally held him prisoner. God caused a garden of longing for the eternal reward that does not fade away, a garden of contentment.

In these dawning days of the New Year, I pray for God's grace to enable me to bloom where He plants me.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2006 Use with credit.

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