The Lonely White Rose

This morning as I was sitting at the kitchen table with my wife, I found myself staring  absent mindedly out the patio window when I suddenly focused on two lone white blossoms on our otherwise barren rose bush.  What caught my attention was the contrast of the pretty flowers in the midst of the messy, brown, leave strewn garden that I have yet to clean up after the summer months.  It made me think of an oasis in the middle of a desert.  It also was a vivid picture of the scriptures that I had studied earlier in the day.

I had opened my Bible this morning to Romans chapters four and five.  The end of chapter four talks about the faith of Abraham while the beginning of the next chapter reminds us of the love that Jesus has for us.  The verse that really jumped off the page to me was Romans 5:8.  It says that “Christ died for us while we were still sinners.  This demonstrates God’s love for us.”  (Gods Word ©)  The reality that Jesus died for sinners and failures, as well as for those who have done awful atrocities against their fellow mankind struck hard at my conscious.  Jesus loved all of us so much that He said I am going to sacrifice myself so that anyone can have the opportunity to be right with my father.  And it is not something that He forced upon us either.  He has given us the freedom of decision to take His offering or not.

The thought that brought this all home to me, was that if He could so love people who would spit on Him, turn away from Him and seek other Gods instead of Him then I could also show a little more love and have a little more faith in people who come against me.  It is not my place to criticize, judge or try to crucify those who make accusations against or are just not nice to me.  My job is to be like the Master and simply forgive them and love them.  That reaction to hurtful situations opens the door for God to do a work in their hearts.  It also frees me to continue to do what God has called me to do without carrying any extra baggage.

God’s love toward the unlovely is similar to how those couple of white rose blossoms changed the otherwise bleak patio scene into one of warmth, beauty and hope for the coming Spring.  With that in mind, I would encourage you to take the opportunity the rest of this busy week before Christmas to be a white rose in someone’s otherwise bleak and needful life.  Stay tuned and keep asking yourself… “What BLESSING am I expecting TO BE today?”