I’m not a natural gardener, in fact I don’t enjoy it at all.
However, I try and keep my garden the best I can with my limited skills in that area.
I have some pots which have bulbs in them that seem to come up every year. I noticed last week that they had really started to grow again, but I had stacked a smaller pot on top of a larger one over winter.
The green shoots from the bottom pot were growing up around the smaller one. When I took the smaller pot off, there were a lot of bulbs that were growing but they were all squashed and yellow instead of green and vibrant.
I’m sure as you are reading this you can see where I’m going with this.
We live in a world where many people are trying to live and flourish, but they are being squashed and kept out of the light which would allow them to grow.
They are still alive and growing but they are not reaching their true potential, hidden away and barely surviving. How can we bring them into the light, how can we help them and ourselves if we are in that situation?
My experience would tell me, that by gently, lovingly and slowly building a relationship with someone we can all help someone flourish, there is rarely a quick fix, but an investment in love and showing God’s love in action can make a big difference in this world.
We can’t change the whole world but if we each helped one person to reach their full potential or even help ourselves to then we would be fulfilling our God-given mission to love others as ourselves.
My squashed bulbs are slowly showing signs of improvement and with a bit of TLC they should produce some great flowers. Who could you help flourish this week?
In John 13:34-35, Jesus says: “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognise that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
Captain Jan Howlin from Wokingham Salvation Army, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham
