Blooming Where You're Planted // A New Page, Part 5

A lot of people spend a lot of their time imagining how good life would be, if only this…or if only that.  In fact, you can spend your whole life living that way. Until finally, you wake up and realise, you were supposed to bloom where you’ve been planted.

This week, as we've been standing on the threshold of yet another New Year, we've been taking a look at the newness that God brings when we decide to have a real relationship with Him. We're made up of body, soul and spirit, you and I. Not in three nice little separate boxes but instead, each one’s so tightly coupled with the others to make up who we are.

And where religion fails time and time again to meet the needs of the whole person, a real relationship with God, the God who created us in the very first place, created us in His image to have a deep and wondrous relationship with Him, that deep relationship brings real refreshing. And this time of year, I think that's important. In fact, I think its important 365 days a year but especially as we look forward to this New Year.

Do you know, there's one thing that I think that we get wrong sometimes. We imagine somehow that "refreshing" – that a new start – comes when our circumstances change. "I know, things would get better if only I could get rid of this person out of my life. If only I could change jobs or find a decent wife or husband, or get that pay increase that I really need, then things will be better."

But sometimes, in fact, often times that's not the case at all. We've seen that on the programs over this week. Sometimes what God really means is for us to bloom right where we've been planted.

I want to share a story with you today because this whole idea of running away from the things we don't like in our lives isn't something I'm up on my little pulpit preaching to you about. It's something that we all go through, me included, and learning this lesson of blooming right where we're planted, for me at least, it's never been an easy one to learn … probably because I grew up in the very first disposable generation – the first generation whose parents could take a pill not to have us; the first generation where packaging and cups and plates and knives and forks and spoons and all sorts of stuff became disposable.

I grew up in the generation where people stopped darning their socks. Instead we just throw them out now and buy new ones. I grew up in the generation where people started, on mass, disposing of their marriages, the one relationship that's meant to last a lifetime. I grew up in the generation where, instead of holding down the same job for a lifetime, people began to move jobs every two or three years. I grew up in the generation where, in fact, not just jobs were changed but it's quite common now for people to change their careers.

And I'm also a product of this society in which I've grown up, a society that's moved away from the permanent to the transient; from commitment to variety; from valuing loyalty to valuing adaptability.

We value different things, we can do different things. Technologies that cost a fortune a few years ago have become commodities today. I remember my first transistor radio – all my Christmases had come at once! Wow! Today, we're taught to change our mobile phones about as often as we change our clothes.

Technologies have become adaptable; when we change our moods we can have different coloured covers for our mobile phones. Even one card that's out there on the market that comes with different coloured panels so you can change them when your mood changes. Can you believe that? 'What I want, when I want it'. That's what we're taught and the more we swallow that stuff, the more it becomes a part of us.

So back to the story I wanted to tell you before I started rabbiting on. Before I became a Christian I used to go through relationships like changing socks. See, here was the deal. I was at the centre of the universe; it was my way or the highway, if you didn't suit me I'd get rid of you.

As a friend, as someone I worked with or if something that I was involved with didn't suit me I'd just walk away. I don't like this, don’t like that, no problem, just ditch the people or the organisation or the activity or whatever it was.

Then, then I became a Christian and, not some religious nut, not into religion much at all actually. I just started getting involved with Jesus, started attending a Church and what I discovered was, that God wasn't so keen for me to ditch people when they didn't suit me. In fact, more and more, He led me to hang in there with people when they were dead set pains in the neck. Of course, you understand, I'm never a pain in the neck. Fortunately I'm perfect and the world revolves around me. Yeah right!

More and more, God grew me in this sense that instead of changing people like socks, instead of changing my circumstances or my situation or my job or whatever, God’s plan was actually for me to bloom right where He'd planted me.

Can I tell you something? That was a real revelation and it's always a difficult lesson for me to learn and you know why? Because it requires sacrifice, it requires me not just to tolerate other people begrudgingly but it requires me to love them with a good heart. Because, unless I do, I don't bloom, I wither. Have a listen to Psalm 92, beginning at verse 12:

The righteous will flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in the Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God.

They're planted and then they flourish, the palm tree, the cedar tree. See, they don't go racing around from one place to another, they plant, they get planted, they stay in one spot. Then they flourish, where? In the house of the Lord. What is the house of the Lord? God's people, Gods family and you know what, like any family, they're not always going to get on.

No doubt there are times when we do change jobs or careers or Churches or whatever. It's happened a handful of times in my life but you know most of the time, my hunch is God wants to plant us where He wants to plant us and He wants us to flourish, to bloom right where He has planted us. I love that word "flourish". It's such a rich word; it's such an abundant word.

So many people spend so much time dreaming about tomorrow and what life would be like if only this or if only that. Isn't that right? But all you and I have today is today and God wants us to flourish in it. "Flourish" means to bud, to sprout, to shoot, to bloom; new growth, flowers, seeds, fruit. Do you get it?

"Flourish" is a fabulous word and the way you flourish isn't by racing around here and there. The way you flourish is by putting your roots down. Now you and I are going to flourish differently, we have different gifts. You and I produce different fruits but flourish is exactly what God wants for you and for me. And that means sometimes, He's going to prune us, pruning hurts. Jesus said:

I am the true vine, my Father is the vine grower and he removes every branch that bears no fruit but every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

I just felt to share this with you today. Maybe instead of running away from the things we're struggling with, maybe this year is the year that we trust God and stay just where we are and we flourish. See, running away never works, 99% of the time the real problem's in us, that's why God prunes us and that hurts but when we let Him prune us, all of a sudden we flourish.

And that’s so rich, so abundant, so satisfying to have love for people who mistreated us. Maybe it's time to stop dreaming, just, just get about the business of flourishing … flourishing right where God has planted us.