How cold is it? So cold we wrapped our plants last night! All up and down the street, our neighbors tucked in their plants before a cold week. I was in hopes our Christmas lights might give us some help. Alas, LED lights, though beautiful, do not produce heat. Why do we protect our plants? It is expensive to replace the ones that we lose, right? We care about our plants, but not as much as we care about our pets.
God must care a great deal about plants. He cared enough to create them on the third day. The plants and trees bore fruit with seed in it. God even planned for the perpetuation of vegetation by creating seed-bearing plants. My neighbor says the plants will be here after we are gone. My Bible says we will be alive after the plants die. But John tells us he saw trees in the garden of heaven, lining the river of life, bearing fruit with leaves offering healing to the nations.
G. K. Chesterton imagined God creating just one dandelion and then because he was so delighted with it said, “Do it again.” What if every plant is the result of God saying with the delight of a child who wants to be swung in the air, “Do it again”?
I am indebted to Mrs. Pietsch (pronounced “peach”), my botany teacher at Frankfurt American High School. After I learned introductory biology in her class, I wanted to take every course she taught. Botany was next. In that class we learned the designs of the plants that God created. It was fascinating to me. Yesterday, as I tried to wrap my fox-tail ferns, I found another plant growing right in the middle of one of them. My “Picture This” App on my phone tells me it is a Cedar Elm tree – a healthy one at that. It chose a strange place to grow. How did that happen? A seed fell in the middle of my fox-tail fern and took root.
The Creator who makes plants grow is still planting seeds in our world. Jesus told a parable about the soils and said that the most fruitful plants will produce a hundred-fold crop. How is the soil of our hearts today? If we are ready to receive it, the seeds God’s Spirit plants in us will produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Cultivate this fruit in your soul. The world can be so cold. But God’s light brings warmth.
