Hothouse Flowers

Hothouse Flowers

I discovered the wholesale flower market in my city when I agreed to do the flowers for my two precious nieces’ weddings—in the same year. That I am not formally trained in floral arranging speaks both of their sensible frugality and their unwavering trust in their aunt’s aesthetic sense. The floral market ships blooms in from far-flung corners of the globe: roses from Australia and Argentina, peonies from New Zealand, orchids and lilies and tulips and dahlias from almost anywhere but Texas. These flowers, in and out of season, are often grown in hothouses to produce the fullest, most beautiful blooms. The results are stunning.

Hothouse flowers are beautiful. They’re symmetrical, fragrant, and mostly blemish-free, but they don’t just happen. They’re coaxed—coddled and helped along by controlled temperatures and fertilizers and careful handling.

Christ followers aren’t meant to be hothouse flowers. We’re rooted in the saving power of the resurrected Savior, and we grow wild, nurtured by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Our beginning is supernatural, yes, but our surroundings are uncontrolled at best and sometimes downright hostile. We’re not protected from automobile accidents or addictions, not immunized from cancer or chronic illness, not untouched by divorce or even death. It’s a rough, unpredictable world God’s placed us in, with the expectation that we will not be fleeting, flawless specimens but eternal, fruitful ones!

Contrasting human love (what we can do by our own contriving) and spiritual love (what God can do in and through us), German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes: “Human love breeds hothouse flowers; spiritual love creates the fruits that grow healthily in accord with God’s good will in the rain and storm and sunshine of God’s outdoors.”^a I like that.

You and I have been firmly planted in God’s great outdoors. We’re not pristine showcase blossoms; our risky growth is being steadily nurtured from the inside out. Our blooms may not be perfect, but in Christ—by the Spirit—we can defy the elements to produce real and lasting fruit. And when we do, our good Gardener-Husbandman will get the glory only he deserves.

May the God of peace . . . equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Hebrews 13:20-21, NIV

^a Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: A Discussion of Christian Fellowship (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 37.