Buds & Blooms

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All of the blooms I am familiar with start out as buds. For many plants, it takes a while to go from the beginning of a bud to a beautiful, mature flower. Why? My unscientific and certainly simplistic answer would be “the bud must wait on nature’s timing.”

In the life of faith, going from a spiritual “bud” to a glorious “flower” also usually takes a while, albeit on a much different scale. In the Old Testament, I think Joseph would give a hearty “Amen!” to this. He did not go from a no-hope, bottom-of-a-well resident to the second-most powerful person in Egypt overnight. And Peter in the New Testament had a long and winding road to be transformed from a speak-and-act-first, think-later fisherman to the first leader of the early church whose Spirit-filled words would convict people of their sins as well as heal them from their maladies.

I feel reasonably certain that Joseph, Peter, and countless other travelers on the path of faith would agree that spiritual growth depends on our willingness to grow and on God’s timing. And however long they take to appear, our “blooms” should give glory to God.