Isaiah 61:11 NLT

'The Sovereign Lord will show his justice to the nations of the world. Everyone will praise him! His righteousness will be like a garden in early spring, with plants springing up everywhere.'

I recently discovered that most plants self-propagate. We have a wonderful wall of cornflowers along the leading edge of our lawn all summer – I mentioned these on Day 3 – the product of some wildflowers sown in pots on our veranda. They easily take over what was barren lawn and bring life and joy not only to the landscape but to all our visitors. Their blue heads, held erect, sway in the breeze and give voice to the wonder of our creator God.

If we imagine our world as bleak and barren without the life of God, we can understand how we are God’s seed scattering, designed to germinate and bring colour and life throughout the globe. If I think of myself as God’s seed, carrying within me all that is needed to bring love and kindness to a world so often at war with itself, I capture something of Isaiah’s prophetic picture. God’s justice can only ever be revealed through God’s seeds randomly scattered everywhere.

Scripture is clear that the life of God lies within each one of us. It is never expressed or sustained through the infrastructure of a project or an institution. Like the cornflower, it springs up unexpectedly. It is affected by the weather; cornflowers can be weighed down by rain, dishevelled by wind, yet still they continue to offer up their declaration of beauty. So we are expressions of God’s life whatever weather our lives endure. We are the taste of God on the earth and as such the only true witness to God’s abiding presence.

QUESTION: Seeds that remain in the packet never flourish and eventually lose their vigour and potential. Are you sharing the gift of God to those around you?

PRAYER: God, may I reveal your beauty and share your love to all around me today. May I draw fresh strength from your Holy Spirit. Fill me, flower in me, flow through me.