Our church is blessed with a beautiful and spacious location, and next to the church is a nursery and floral business. This past year, the owner of that business began attending our church, and eventually he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior! What a blessing!
On Christmas Eve, this man presented me with what is the most beautiful centerpiece I have ever had that he designed for me. This centerpiece is absolutely gorgeous. It is filled with all sorts of lovely things: miniature birds, beautiful artificial fruit, burlap-wrapped packages and balls, lots of pinecones and red berries, and much more. I was so excited!
It also contained fresh evergreen and holly branches. I knew that if I wanted to preserve my centerpiece for next year, I would need to remove all the fresh greenery. It didn't seem like a big deal. It looked like the greenery was just inserted here and there among the pretty things. So, covering my kitchen counter with newspaper, I set to work.
It didn't take me long to discover that I had seriously underestimated the amount of fresh greenery in this centerpiece. The pile of discarded greenery on my counter grew. And as I continued to remove it, the centerpiece began to fall apart. That's when it hit me: the pretty things were NOT the foundation of this centerpiece after all. The fresh greenery was. I had assumed the greenery was just stuck in here and there, when in actuality, it formed the foundation for all the pretty adornments. And so I began thinking about that. How many times we falsely believe the pretty adornments in our life are the foundation and the most important part of our lives, when it is really something else that is the true foundation: our relationship with the Lord. Our time with God and our walk with Him forms the true foundation, and on that all the other things depend. The "adornments" in our lives are just that - adornments. Not the other way around. And when we remove the foundation by neglecting Him, everything else falls apart.
Not only did my centerpiece begin to fall apart without the greenery which formed the foundation, but I noticed even as I re-constructed it that it wasn't nearly as beautiful without any greenery. I hadn't thought that the greenery was that important in the appearance of the centerpiece, but it turns out that it was. In our Christian lives, it is that inner beauty that comes only from the love, peace, and joy that God gives that truly makes us attractive. 1 Peter 3:4 says, in talking about the appearance of women, "But let it be the hidden man of the heart, that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek (gentle) and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God a great price." The lasting fruit of a strong spiritual foundation is found in Galatians 5:22-23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." So often we live as if the outwardly visible, attractive things are the most important part, when in reality the true beauty in our lives comes from a strong foundation of knowing Jesus Christ.
Thoughtfully,
Kathi
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