Wildflowers are beautiful...

A few years ago, I was driving down a boring stretch of road and out of nowhere. The scenery was boring. The road was lined with trees and uncut grass that had grown too high. Then, as I rounded a slight curve in the road, I saw a splash of color! Someone had taken wildflower seeds and thrown them into this patch of grass. I was very excited to see the splash of vivid yellows, reds, and purples. The whole thing just brightened my day. Later on, I found out that this was something called the "wildflower project."

Life is the same way. People go through life like they are mindlessly driving down the road trying to get to the next thing that they are going to engage in until the time comes for them to go to bed and start the process all over again.

But every once in awhile, they encounter someone who truly believes in God, who brightens their day with an encouraging word or a prayer. If you look at the life of Jesus, that kind of thing happened all the time. Look at his conversation with Zacchaeus, the woman at the well, the rich young ruler, the man at the pool waiting to be healed... the list goes on where people have these wildflower experiences with Jesus and it changes their lives!

We should be those wildflowers. Unfortunately, all too often, we get caught up in everything that is going on around us, and we forget to blossom.

And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word.15 And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. 17 And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit,thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” Mark 5: 13-20

Let us struggle to not live our lives on rocky ground, or to let the cares of this world prevent us from blooming. Let's be open to God prompting us to have these wildflower moments with those people that we encounter.