Below the Surface

Yesterday, I was setting out some fall plants in my small front-yard garden plot.  Currently, I have one half-hearted zinnia and one scraggly lantana.  Nothing else survived the heat of summer.  The plant I was putting out is in a container and as I was placing it, I saw something strange.  Five green leaves poking up. Hmmph!  I thought that lily had died - in fact, I thought I had dug it up and thrown it away.  Oh, well...I made sure to not set the legs of the new container on top of those leaves and hurried on my busy way.

This morning, very early, when I woke up for a few minutes, a picture of those leaves popped into my mind. I thought back to my beautiful lily plant that I had planted this spring; how thick and strong the stalk was, how large and green the leaves were, how enormous and vibrant the blooms were. I remembered how it began to wilt as the summer went on, and then, how dried out and withered the plant had become.  It was an embarrassment in a place where there was supposed to be life, growth and beauty.  I really thought I had dug it up, but apparently, I just cut the dead stalk.

As I pictured that lifeless, dried plant, I thought, "Wow! Who would have imagined, looking at that dead specimen that there was still life under the soil?" Immediately, God connected the dots in my mind. How often do we look at people and, because of what we see, we assume that they are dead, lifeless, that there is no growth possible?  All the while, underneath, below what you or I can see, God may be stirring life, reviving, growing.  One day, when we least expect it, perhaps in a different season, we may see signs of life and renewal in that person.

How many times and ways have we heard throughout our lives that we should not judge a person by their outward appearance?  That God judges their hearts. 

Moms, dads, wives, husbands, sons, daughters, friends - don't give up hope! Just because you don't see life in your loved one or situation right now doesn't mean that there isn't life and hope beneath the surface. What you see may cause you to think that they will never come to God, or return to God, that it will never get better, but there very well may be life below the surface, moving, stirring, changing, growing. God is life, and He is everywhere, even below the surface, in places we cannot be or see.