Consider the lilies...and the Daisies

I went for a walk on a recent evening, and as I returned home, the rays from the setting sun slipped through the trees and fell across our field filled with wildflowers. A blue-gray haze had already begun to settle around the edge of the tree-rimmed field, in stark contrast to the yellow and white of the blooms which appeared to almost glow from the inside out. The sunlight shone at seemingly impossible angles, making everything it illuminated seem brand-new and perfect. The field which I've seen thousands of times, was suddenly something I did not recognize. It caught me off guard and took my breath away.

It was a moment which stopped me in my tracks and made the majesty and presence of God real beyond words. No amount of trying to explain matters of faith or hearing someone talk about what God has done for them or meant to them can compare to those brief glimpses we occasionally experience which can only be described as heavenly. In an instant like that, all doubts and fears melt away, and all that we strive for in our day-to-day existence, all of the work and worry, fades away in glorious, triumphant realization that nothing matters except God himself, God alone, and he is all we need. When our eyes are opened to that reality, we can see God in every moment, in every person, in every situation, and nothing looks the same.

I was reminded we are told to "consider the lilies," and their magnificent testimony of not "toiling" or "spinning" but merely being. It is a wonderful place when we allow ourselves to simply be in God's presence and drink in all that he is and all that he wants to be in us. When we begin to see God's majesty at every turn and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by his love and his grace, then we, too, become as the lilies and the wildflowers, inspiring others, not by our work or even our good deeds, but simply because the light has transformed us, making us different than we were. Without a word from us, people will recognize that only God could be responsible for the change and the beauty in us.