Articles
What Do You See?
Many years ago, my mother decided to plant a few morning glory seeds alongside the carport of our house. As the morning glory bloomed, Mama thought it made for some pretty flowers. Daddy didn't. My father was a cotton farmer and if you know anything about cotton (or any other row crop), you know it doesn't mix well with morning glory. He'd spent a goodly portion of his working life trying to eliminate every morning glory he could and now Mama was not only helping them to grow, she was admiring them. Those morning glories had to go! Where Mama saw flowers, Daddy saw weeds.
Think about the last time you were at church services and all the folks you saw there. Think about the kids and adults as they went to and from their classes. Think about them as they visited with each other, walked the hallways or entered and exited the building. What did you see more of? Flowers...or weeds? I don't mean plant life growing in the church building. I mean people. How did you see them? What did you see as you observed others? Those who would be perfect...or their imperfections? Flowers...or weeds?
Truth is, it takes precious little time or effort to spot the weeds among us. When writers such as the apostle Paul spoke of the church in New Testament times, the shortcomings of those who made it up were admitted and duly noted. Even on our best days, there are surely none among us who would be so enamored of ourselves that we fail to recognize our own scars, blemishes, and warts. Our faults. Ourweeds.
It doesn't take a trick mirror of sorts to see the flowers in our brethren. It does, however, take an ego restrained by godly humility combined with a generous heart toward the faults of one another. It takes a maturity nurtured by a common yearning to spend eternity in Heaven together. It takes a determination, borne not out of a sense of duty but of a genuine love, to help each other reach that destination.
"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ." (1 Corinthians 12:12)
As Christians, we're members of the same body. Together, we're all one in the body that Christ bought with His blood, the church (Acts 20:38, Ephesians 5:25). All of us, in some way or another, are both flower and weed. All of us have the goal of reaching perfection. To that end, all of us have to deal with the imperfections that remind us we're finite beings.
Ask the Lord for vision that first lets you first see the flowers: to see the good in your brethren...and yourself. And should you ever find it necessary to "pull a weed", take care that you don't damage the root of a flower, lest it die along with the weed.
Oh, and by the way, Daddy let Mama keep her "flowers".
