Sunflowers

Today’s life story in ODB aptly describes the challenge we face as Christians. The planter wants to see his sunflowers bloom while the deer in his neighbourhood seeks to devour their leaves and stems because they are food to them. So it’s a constant battle to see them bloom in spring before the deer eats them all.

It’s a good analogy of our Christian walk as the devil and his cohorts try to devour whatever growth we have in our spiritual life, in our character and personality as we seek to mature in Christ so that we remain as infants, powerless to impact his kingdom of darkness. Worse the devil may distract and tempt us and bring us totally away from God that we end up on the wide road to destruction, instead of still running the race on the narrow road that leads to eternity.

Christ however brings us to fullness by His blood amd God will complete His work in us and bring it to completion as He who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).

It is not stated in the story but I guess the way he would have protected his sunflower crops is to probably fence up the area. But sometimes the deer could find a way through the fence and thus some are lost. Thus a planter’s work is always to care for his plants as well as his fencing. In the spiritual sense that fencing care is what Christ does in us daily even as He has brought us to fullness by His blood. We need to be moulded daily to effect a genuine change in our character as a person and to have real spiritual growth in us. The transformation from head knowledge to life changes take time and that’s the daily grind of the planter repairing and putting up fences to protect his sunflower plants. But unlike sunflower plants who remain static at where they are planted, we humans in our folly may we breach the fences and wander out to see the “world” and get distracted and devoured in the process! The Good Shepherd will come and rescue us but it’s a constant battle, right? If that’s true of us, isn’t that a sad reflection of who we are in Christ that Christ constantly needs to watch out for us to rescue us? If so, aren’t we still infants still drinking spiritual milk? When will be graduating to meat? When will we grow up and start fighting battles for God? Do we remain in the wilderness or are we like Joshua and Caleb entering and conquering the Promised Land for God and ourselves?