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Program D-7799
If you want to be inspired, google “plants that grow in concrete.” You will see amazing pictures of all kinds of flowers and plants that are able to grow in the most difficult and unlikely places. I was totally mesmerized to see lovely flowers growing out of cracks in a sidewalk, beautiful blooms popping up from a pile of old tires—picture after picture of plants that bloomed in the most unlikely and difficult places.
That’s what I’ve been talking about—the challenge each of us faces to make the very best of where we are, blooming where we are planted. The children of Israel were captured and taken from Jerusalem to Babylon, and through the prophet Jeremiah, God told them to bloom right there. You’ll find that story in Jeremiah 29.
But in Psalm 137:1-4, we find this sad passage:
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
Doesn’t sound like they were blooming there in Babylon, does it? Their joy was gone; their song was dead; they had given up because they were in Babylon rather than in Jerusalem. Notice that they had the opportunity to sing the songs of Zion, the songs of the Lord. They could have shared the truth about the one true God with these pagan people, but their response was, “How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?”
Maybe that’s where you are today. You’re in some place that you don’t want to be: maybe you’re bored, tired, or totally unmotivated, such that you’ve hung your harp on a poplar tree, so to speak, and quit blooming. I’ve been there; I know how that feels. I want to encourage you today to remember that there is a beautiful bloom inside of you, planted there by our God. If you’ll open a little crack and let his sunshine in, you can bloom again right there! His love will shoot up through that crack and you’ll once again bloom where you are planted.
So, go get that harp you hung up on the poplar tree. By faith—not necessarily by feelings—ask God to give you a song to sing right where you are, a song from the Lord even while you’re planted in that place where you don’t want to be. You can turn your Babylon into a garden full of God’s love when you remember that he loves you, and choose to share his love with everyone around you.