A Visual Display
Spring is in full bloom. The trees in my back yard have beautiful blooms, my tulips open each morning with the sunshine, and I’ve had to begin pulling weeds. My husband and I traditionally anticipate the first peeks of green that pop from the ground, reminding us that consistent warmer weather is just around the corner. That warmer weather has begun to settle in and I am overjoyed, especially as I step outside and breathe in the aromas that make my husband sneeze but make me giddy with delight: tulips and lilacs and hyacinths and blooming pear trees. We’ve begun taking evening walks again; partly for our dog’s benefit and partly to enjoy nature’s visual spring glory. If you didn’t know anything about weather, or the change of seasons, it would still be obvious that there is something happening in the world. Nature provides an amazing visible display that declares winter is over and it’s time for the earth to awaken and treat our senses to it’s incredible wonder.
God reminded my heart this morning that the distinct obviousness of Spring is a wonderful visual of something He expects of me. I was reading Ephesians 2:1-10 this morning, reminding my heart of truth: God is rich in mercy; He loves me with a great and wonderful love; He has given me the incredible gift of salvation; He is renewing me; and He is creating me to be a masterpiece. The Holy Spirit challenged my spirit with questions like: how am I influenced by this present age? How am I still governed by my sinful self? How and where do I want to indulge the desires of my human nature? How and when do I give into the impulses of my mind? The Holy Spirit was asking me to deal with some hard stuff and I felt myself wanting to gloss over the questions and not really deal with them. Somewhat in “distraction mode,” I decided to read the passage of scripture in different versions.
I love how God just keeps nudging me in ways that I don’t always notice. The clincher came when I read Ephesians 2:7 in The Passion Translation: “… we will be the visible display of the infinite, limitless riches of his grace and kindness, which was showered upon us in Jesus Christ.” As I was reading, I was also staring out my window at my tulips, and God drew some connecting lines for me. Just like the tulips and the trees blooming in the back yard give me a glorious visual that Spring has truly settled in, I am to be a glorious visual that Jesus Christ has settled in my heart. People should get an aroma of Christ when I enter a room. There should a distinctiveness that declares Jesus has changed me. I am to be a visible display of immeasurable, exceeding, undeserved kindness. I am to be a visible display of remarkable compassion. I am to be a visible display of grace, undeserved favor and mercy.
My mind now reads Ephesians 2 with a side note of “I’m to be a tulip, declaring the truth that Jesus has come.” It’s a little easier to handle the questions the Holy Spirit used to prod my soul, when I imagine myself growing to be the most beautiful tulip. I want to declare His glory; be an expression of His excellence. I want to be freed from the weeds that the world wants to grow around me, that detract from the beauty of my blooming. Jesus is making me to be a masterpiece, and I’m imagining a tulip.
