Sunflowers

There's no mistaking a sunflower. It shoots its way into the air and everyone knows it's there. Its stalk is strong and its seedy face is turned so that all passersby notice its presence. A sunflower strides through life; it doesn't creep.

Other flowers are more sedate. They might be delicate or low to the ground. They have their seeds deep inside and tread softly through the fields of our dreams.

Still others walk a path between the two, not calling attention to themselves, but providing a contrast so that their own beauty becomes evident to all who look.

In the garden of our existence, we, like the flowers, all have our part to play. Sunflowers that are planted under low hanging branches have to twist and bend to find their sun and get mangled in the process. Hothouse flowers brought out into the elements suffer blight and are full of holes. Bushes that live in the shadow of a larger plant remain scrawny and thin.

Jesus said that He came that we may have abundant life and the best way to achieve this is to be fully who we are. God created us with wonderful talents and personality patterns that were there at our birth. Trying to become something else just means that we are a mediocre knockoff of another plant in the garden. The place we've been given to occupy is meant to accommodate who we are - and all of our potential. God is delighted when we fill out the space he's allotted to us.

Be a sunflower; be a rose bush; be a pine tree, but above all, be who God made you to be.