Me: Look at the beautiful flower that is growing in the middle of that fence!
Prodigal: Yes, something about it speaks to my heart about the struggles of life.
Me: I was reading that in a book. Let me share.
This is from the book Disappointment With God by Philip Yancey
Paradoxically, the most perplexing, Job-like times may help “fertilize” faith and nurture intimacy with God. The deepest faith, what I have called fidelity, sprouts at a point of contradiction, like a blade of grass between stones. Human beings grow by striving, working, stretching; and in a sense, human nature needs problems more than solutions. Why are not all prayers answered magically and instantly? Why must every convert travel that same tedious path of spiritual discipline? Because persistent prayer, and fasting and study, and meditation are designed primarily for our sakes, not for God’s.
The flower is beautiful and rare not because it has grown up in a field full of roses. It is beautiful because in the most unlikely places, a fence on a gravel path with no rich soil around it, the flower bloomed. We may not know the struggle it took to bloom in that spot but we can look at that flower and appreciate the beauty.
Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
