What Pretty Flowers!

One thing that my wife and I like to do each year is to get flowers to plant around the house. We have a flower bed along each side of the sidewalk that leads up to the house and additional beds by the deck and then the at the other end of the house. We get different kinds and assorted colors of flowers each year. We love variety because it adds so much color to the yard. We plant some perennials and some annuals like marigolds and pansies. This year we got a couple of different flowers which I have no clue what their names are but they are pretty and are doing quite well. My one neighbor planted some flowers this year and his are doing as well as mine are in the front. I have gotten a lot of comments on how nice the flowers look from from people in the neighborhood. I always say thank you to them but I don't go into how much work goes into to making them look so pretty. I have to constantly weed the beds and keep the grass from encroaching into the beds. Then when it is hot and we don't get any rain, I have to water them on a regular basis to keep them healthy. We also give them plenty of fertilizer from the time they are planted till the end of the season. Miracle Gro is the secret! We enjoy the flowers but they do take work to keep them growing and staying vibrant. We have another neighbor whose flowers aren't doing as well. Theirs are small and struggle to keep their flowers. After talking with them. I realized they don't spend as much time on the flowers as I do.

I thought about how our flowers are doing better than theirs. They have some of the same flowers we have but the difference is the work that goes into keeping them healthy. In order to make them grow, we need to feed them, give them plenty of water and keep the weeds clear so they don't rob the flowers of nutrients. When you do these things the flowers grow and add to the yard decor. But when you don't do these things, the flowers do not do too well. Our lives are no different than the flowers. We need to do certain things to keep ourselves healthy. Physically we need to eat right, exercise, get proper rest and have regular checkups. Spiritually we we have to do some things to maintain our spiritual health as well. We need to keep our selves pure (keep the weeds out), keep ourselves in the Word ( fertilize our heart's soil), allow the Spirit to keep us anointed (water our spirit with the Living Water) and allow God to examine our hearts constantly ( have regular checkups). If we neglect any one of these, we allow our growth to be halted. We may not notice the symptoms of neglect right away but it will become apparent, if not to us, then to others. So make every effort to keep yourself growing and blooming in God! Make a difference in your world and add some color!

Now if I could only keep the rabbits out of the flowers! Can you guess who the rabbits represent? That is a whole lesson in itself!