Flourish Where You’re Planted - Lizzie Young
It’s funny how, if we look closely enough, and quieten the world around us, enough, we can hear God speak through the most natural of things. Over the past few years God has been speaking to me, about me, through these tiny plants that have been growing in my house.
It’s time for us to put our ear to the ground, so to speak, and let God talk. If you will join me, let’s listen...
Psalm 1:3
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of living water,
That brings forth fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.
FLOWERS
Flowers are pretty, right? Especially as a gift, nicely arranged in a bouquet, in a vase, on a table. It’s such a beautiful gesture of affection to give flowers! But, guess what – shocker – these flowers are already dead! Nooooo! It’s just a matter of time before the world finds out.
An arrangement of flowers is always gonna be more impressive than a plant or a tree, but it doesn’t take long for these flowers to fade. In fact, if you were to put a bouquet of flowers out in the sun it will shrivel up, even quicker. You see this in the music industry when people who start out in the church worship band, then get a taste of fame and fortune and disconnect from the house of God. They are cutting themselves off from the very thing that keeps them alive and, what happens next?
It’s possible to have seasons with no fruit, but it’s impossible to go without roots. If we base our identity on something that will fade away, we will fade away, also. Flowers are what others get to benefit from, but they do not define the plant, itself. A plant’s roots determine what it will become.
POT PLANTS
Then, there are pot plants that grow and thrive in somebody’s home, usually to pretty up a corner or some dead space. They like moving around, to catch the best sun, but what I have learned about pot plants is, either they have to keep going from pot to pot to keep up with their growth, or, they stay in the same pot and actually stop growing.
Sometimes, we are too afraid of what being planted in the soil might mean – like we’d lose our freedom – but pot plants, like bouquets, are temporary. There’s only so long you can stay in one pot, or only so long you can rely on the next size up to satisfy you. If you want to grow, if you want to flourish, you MUST be planted into the ground.
The cost is Comfort. The reward is Heaven.
SEEDS
If I was to plant a seed, what would happen? Would it sprout straight away? No! The seed disappears, right?
We so often plant a dream, or a thought, or an idea, and expect it to spring into life, straight away, but in actual fact, the opposite happens. A seed has to DIE in order to bring life! The beauty about being a seed planted in good soil, is that there is endless provision and endless depth. The deeper the seed is planted, the stronger the roots will become.
But we hate it! I hate it, being buried in the darkness not knowing when, if ever, my dreams will come alive. But, take comfort in this, seeds don’t grow UP first, they grow DOWN. Their main concern is reaching the deepest source of water. If we want to be women of depth and of strength, we must first grow DOWN to grow up.
It wasn’t until my friend sat with me and shared, “Liz, you feel like you’re buried in a coffin and your dreams will never come to pass. You are not buried Liz, you are being PLANTED. God is pushing you deeper into the ground, because the deeper the soil, the richer the fruit.”
A single grain of wheat will never be more than a single grain of wheat unless it drops into the ground and dies. Because then it sprouts and produces a great harvest of wheat—all because one grain died.
John 12:24
What I have learnt through my own season of being planted is:
you don’t need to be the centre of attention
what is beneath the surface is more important than what people see
without flowers, you’re still growing, but without roots, you die
it’s better to be planted and established in something than to be full bloom but attached to nothing.
So, dear one, which plant are you? What could it mean for you to be Planted?
Written by Lizzie Young
Lizzie is married to Blake Young and mother to Keilani, Zion, Shiloh. She lives in Gaborone, Botswana and is on team at Kingdomcity