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A Lost Cause With the official arrival of summer, my thoughts have turned once again to tending my garden and stocking my window boxes. I really enjoy working with plants. There is something very satisfying about watching little seeds and starts grow and mature into beautiful new forms. It also seems that I have a bit of a talent, a gift if you will, for bringing sick plants back from the edge of oblivion. I sometimes jokingly refer to my house as the "Home For Wayward Plants"; sort of a last ditch refuge for greenery that others have given up for dead. As long as there is at least a spark of life left in a stem, vine, or frond, it's almost guaranteed that I can nurse the tragic outcast back to health. Many people tend to look at a scraggly, dried up, leafless plant and write it off as a "lost cause." They make a snap judgment based solely on its appearance, and quickly put a check mark in the "not worth it" column, simply because they deem it "too much trouble" to put the time and effort into finding out if maybe this haggard bit of greenery can still be made to blossom. However, I find it hard to believe that any plant is a lost cause if it still has even a hint of green left, possibly hidden deep beneath the surface, desperate for another chance at life. I have found that if even a single branch still has moisture at its core, if there is still any shred of life-giving water in its veins, then there is still hope for a full recovery. It's amazing the change that can occur in a "lost cause" if it receives the right kind of care, attention, nourishment and sunlight it needs. It is naturally true that the worse off a plant is at the start, the more work it will take, and the closer you will have to watch it initially. It will need lots of TLC (tender loving care) as it begins its journey on the road back to health. Eventually though, it will become strong enough to stand on its own, needing less and less scrutiny, until finally you realize that it has become a vibrant, growing thing, seemingly a new creation, nearly unrecognizable from what it was before. Often it is the plants that are the most far "gone" that surprise me the most. It is sometimes difficult to tell what a plant is supposed to look like in its healthy form when all you have to go on are a few withered branches in some dried out soil. You have to learn to see the possibilities instead, sensing the untapped potential that lies within. For example, just recently I came across two miniature roses bushes. One looked healthy, with plenty of green leaves; by all appearances a fruitful, productive plant. The other, however, had been neglected, left without water for too long. All that was left on the second plant were a few stems and no leaves -- by all appearances a definite lost cause. The owner of the plant was ready to toss it out in the trash, but I took a closer look. The stems were still flexible, they still had moisture, still harbored the hope of life within. So I took it on as a project. I began to give it the attention it needed, daring to believe in what it could become. I watered it faithfully, gave it plant food, and exposed it to a lot of fresh air and light. Slowly, the "lost cause" began to sprout leaves; first one, then another, then another. Soon, each of the stems had sprouted several leaves. The lost cause was coming back to life! Eventually, the given-up-as-lost plant began to look like a real bush again, and finally was healthy enough to be planted outside. I planted both rose bushes -- the "weak" and the "healthy" -- together, continuing to nurse them both with equal love and care. Now, a few weeks later, the "mutt" -- the plant that was such a pitiful sight at first -- is the one that is beginning to blossom the fullest. It is showing flower buds even before the supposedly "healthy" plant! I've learned a valuable lesson in this. Too often we tend to judge the people around us by how they look on the outside. Often we see only a rough, unsavory, even unpleasant character, someone too often neglected, perhaps abused; until there appears to be nothing left but a bitter, angry, dried-up shell one step away from the "trash heap." A definite "lost cause". And yet Jesus never looked at anyone that way. Whether they were a prostitute, a leper, a hated tax collector or an illiterate deck-hand on a fishing boat, Jesus looked beyond the outside, to see the potential life on the inside. He looked beyond the "obvious," to see the potential. And often, it was the roughest, most "far gone" characters that blossomed the most magnificently! He chose Matthew (Levi), a despised tax collector, hated by his countrymen, calling him out of what and who he was to become something wonderful and unexpected. The teachings and exhortations of Paul, a devout Pharisee once proudly committed to hunting down and exterminating the fledging Church, have become a source of light and hope and inspiration for millions throughout the last 2000 years. Mary Magdalene, a troubled woman possessed by seven demons, would become one of His most devoted followers. Jesus Christ, the Messiah, has a unique and wondrous gift of being able to look beneath the surface of what we ARE to see what we might someday BE. He is not content for us to be consigned to the trash heap. He is willing, driven, and committed to taking the time and showing us the care we need to become new creations in him. I have seen God work what amounts to miracles in the lives of people I have known, many of whom I had foolishly considered "lost causes." They had hardened their hearts to God, speaking sarcastically or even dismissively about the claims of Christ. And yet, sometimes months, sometimes years later, I hear that they have begun to explore, to ask, to read the Bible, and even ultimately to give their lives to Christ. What looked to me like a "lost cause" looked to God like a wounded, hurting soul that just needed the right kind of care. It is often the people who are the most radically converted that become the brightest lights in the Kingdom of God. People who have known the depths of hurt and despair to which a human soul can sink are the often ones who can be the most visibly and awesomely transformed. By walking away from a life of drugs, or alcohol, or depression, or a string of dysfunctional and abusive relationships, they become a powerful testimony to the redemptive power of God's love working in their life. They have already tasted enough hell to know heaven when they really find it. These New Creations will reflect this in the intensity of their devotion and desire to serve, often bearing fruit much more abundantly than apparently healthy, lifelong Christians. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is full of Jesus' criticisms of the Pharisees, who "looked healthy" on the outside through all their pomp and shows of piety and devotion, but were truly dead inside. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men's] bones, and of all uncleanness." Mat 23:27 (KJV) Again, in Matthew 21:19 we see Jesus dealing with "false fruit": "Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only; and He said to it, 'No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.' And at once the fig tree withered." The key to understanding this passages lies in knowing that with a fig tree, the fruit comes first, and then the leaves grow later. Thus, in approaching this leaf-laden tree, Jesus had the expectation that there would be fruit. Yet there was not. So, just as he had cursed the Pharisees for their many "leaves" and total lack of "fruit", so also did this tree suffer his rebuke. A strong lesson for those who too often "talk the talk" without "walking the walk!" Throughout the Bible we see that God often chooses those that society rejects to serve the most mightily in His Kingdom. The wealthy, the proud, the successful and the self-righteous have often decided in their heart that they need no one but themselves, that they have all the answers they need, and so they are of little use to God. However, the humble, the downtrodden, and the outcast know what it is to truly want, to have nothing, wanting little more than for someone to stop and take the time to look beneath their gruff exterior to see the soft place inside that yearns to grow. Jesus sees into this place. He takes us and accepts us as we are, and yet, He sees also what we may become when we give our life to Him. He sees the potential in each one of us to become so much more than what we are, or what we have let the World convince us that we aren't. This new life, this new hope is available to anyone who will turn away from their own path of self-destruction, committing their life to Him, more fully, more humbly, more obediently than ever before. Jesus specializes in the "lost cause," and so should those who claim to be His followers. The very people that, in our flesh, we so want to avoid or dismiss as "lost causes" are the very people in which God is the most interested! It will take time, and patience, love, and understanding, but over time you can watch as the Spirit of God strengthens and heals them, as they grow stronger and more secure in Christ, until one day you finally realize that he or she has become a vibrant, growing thing, seemingly a new creation, nearly unrecognizable from what they were before. Take some time to let Christ's "living water" flow out through you, and bring life to the parched soul of someone who has been left neglected for too long. You might find that in a few weeks, months, or sometimes even years, that person who seemed like such a lost cause will have become a mighty force in the cause of saving the lost! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" John 7:38 (NASB) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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