Where the Flowers Bloom

"How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned over within Me, all My compassions are kindled. I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, And I will not come in wrath." ~ Hosea 11:8-9

Good Evening! How are you my dears? And exactly what are you doing staring at a computer screen on a glorious day like this? (So maybe it's raining at your house. Take a walk. You'll be surprised how fun it is. And the neighbors always enjoy watching it, too.) But not to abuse my readers. As you should be able to tell by now, this is a guest post. That is, not one by Miss Blair. I guess we might have to include Lily in the "non-guest" section, too, but I'm not sure. But it's not by her either. This is an entirely different sort of tea poured, with a whole lot of extras, by Sarah's sister, Leah.

And what do I have to say that's so daggum important that I interrupt the Conference Highlights series to say it? Well, children, attend and listen. I have come to the conclusion based on mature (no, really) and sober reflection that my life, your life, the life of the world in general, is a ridiculous proposition. If God had made me His advisor (something I wouldn't advise anyone to do) I would have done my best to put the kibosh on the whole concern. I mean, really, why would a perfect God, alone in an unmarred emptiness, desire anything but His own thoughts? He has always been self-sufficient to a degree that we can never understand. Why would He crowd that glorious space with things less than what He is? But He did. And what's more, He knew, even before He had created time (if you can think of something as chronologically associated to time, and yet beyond it) that it would fall to pieces. He knew there would be sin, and not just the fashionable, reformed sins. Sins of the darkest nature possible; sins so black that you and I barely understand their extent. And He did it anyway. He knew that the death of His Son, His only Son, whom He loved, would be required to right the wrong, and He did it anyway. How could He consider this world worth it? Half of it rejects Him, their Maker, altogether, and the other half can barely be persuaded to get up and worship one day a week. I'm telling you, if I had been the Lord when that apple (just for the sake of argument! keep your pants on) touched Eve's teeth I would have blasted the whole affair to smithereens. But you know, all He did was keep a promise. "You want this produce? You pay this price, which you knew about long before you got hungry."

But He didn't let it rest there. He could have let the world become Hell and poured out His wrath on all of us. Instead, He died. He became sin. he became death that we might have life.

I saw a picture once, in a magazine, of a morgue near the border of Mexico. It was full. Full of dead bodies wrapped in blood-soaked sheets. A single, bare bulb shed something like light on a scene I would have left in darkness. There was not a single beautiful thing in that room. And Jesus Christ said "Give Me that cup. Your will is Mine." Ridiculous, really.

But do you know what else I've seen? I've seen a bank of cracked red clay thrown up around a cheap, filthy construction sight. There had been a green forest there once; progress, however, doesn't like tress (I guess I better stop this subject before Sarah boycotts the entire post. We don't exactly see eye-to-eye here). Anyway, there was the dirt, and the waste, and the ugly building. And growing all over were morning glories, stretching their green tendrils and innocent blossoms where they had no business being. But that's what God's like. He glorifies Himself in a fallen world redeemed, in slaves made sons, in morning glories growing in a construction sight.

Post Script. There are no emoticons in this post. Give it a try.