Week 43 A New Declaration

Flowers are pretty things; each colorful variety distracting me to turn aside and look. Even something as mundane as a dandelion calls out to children seeking gifts for mommy.

The thing about flowers is that they are temporary, God’s performance art. Even the most stunningly beautiful varieties will give up the ghost, petals falling to the ground in dried shells of their former splendor. But when they pass on they also drop seeds into the earth. They must give up their glory in order to reproduce more glory.

Dandelions may be called weeds, but, oh my, are they interesting. The seeds are produced without pollination, resulting in offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant. Now when a dandelion ‘dies’, it creates an ethereal display of ghostly seed-carrying parachutes. It uses the winds to carry its seeds through the heavens across the earth to finally land in fertile soil far away. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

As we wrap up our meditations from “The Forgotten Way” recall all we learned of our Father and our position in His Family. Remember we have the mind of Christ, and are risen with Him. Remember that we are made in the likeness of God, restored to Him through Jesus, and have aligned ourselves with the Father by surrendering all that blocks our sight of our true self in him. Jesus called us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him.

Just as a new dandelion is in the image of the original, so are we in God. Yet all this glory, beauty, hope and love is meant to be shared with others. We cannot share what we hold tightly. We must let go: of our offenses, rights, positions and possessions. Trust in the infinite completeness and goodness of our Dad to meet our needs as we let go in order to serve.

Then in our ‘death’ we spread the seeds of Hope until all things are changed, reconciled and become new.

Philippians 2:1-13

1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.