The
desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing. Isaiah 35: 1-2
It looks like something that’s escaped from
George Lucas’ fertile imagination; it smells as bad as week old road-kill and
attracts flies like a garbage dump. Dung beetles, those repellant residents of
Usually considered the largest flower in
the world; it can tower to a remarkable height of 20 feet (6.09 meters) or more
and opens to an impressive diameter of 15 feet (4.5 meters). It is actually an inflorescence (or compound
flower) with a fleshy, upright spadix (axis) surrounded by a pale green,
petal-like spathe (husk) that reveals a velvety maroon interior as it unfurls.
The actual flowers, male and female, are located at the base of the spadix.
A day or two after the plant reaches full bloom, the spadix collapses from its
own weight and the spathe withers away, possibly never to bloom again.
Native
to the equatorial rain forests of the Island
of Sumatra (Indonesia) where it’s known as the
“corpse flower” the male and female flowers mature at different times, which
means the plant cannot self-pollinate. In the absence of a second plant in
bloom nearby, animal, insect or human intervention is necessary.
As rare
and “out-of-this-world” as this biological oddity is, there is yet something
that is even more uncommon!
Have you
ever met a believer who takes 1 Thessalonians 5:18 literally?
Thank [God] in
everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give
thanks], for this is the will of God for you [who are] in Christ Jesus [the
Revealer and Mediator of that will].
1 Thessalonians 5:18 Amplified Bible
1 Thessalonians 5:18 Amplified Bible
Thank God no matter what happens. This is the
way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 The Message
Several countries celebrate Thanksgiving annually,
but this verse commands that we Christians celebrate it everyday! Those words of Paul’s have the ring of something of the impossible about them. They
call us to lofty heights which seem to be too rugged and steep for our feeble
feet. That is why many of us never think of taking this great passage
seriously. We simply bypass it.
This verse tells us that gratitude is not optional; as Christians, we cannot be grateful or ungrateful as it suits us. To refuse to be thankful is to refuse to be obedient.
Paul
says: “Thank God in everything.”… in time of joy and sorrow, in times of laughter and through the tears, in the moments bright with meaning and during the
hard “seasons of the night”—“In everything give thanks.” That
means that we are to be thankful when we succeed. We are to be
grateful in the moments of prosperity and of victory. When we finally obtain our “dream”, and when
that dream dissolves like the morning mist.
We are
to be thankful when our bodies are healthy, filled with vitality and energy; we are to be thankful when they
are old and suffering the wounds of time. We are also to be thankful when
the hand illness and disease is upon us.
When you read Paul’s letters they are alive
with thanksgiving and praise, they ring with exultant, triumphant
hallelujahs… was this because Paul had all that the world has to offer? No…He
had been shipwrecked, stoned, wounded, hounded, whipped, imprisoned, vilified
by his own people, and finally the enemies of the Living God killed him, but they never killed
his gratitude.
How is this impossibility to be realized?
The answer: it can only be realized through
faith in God.
Gratitude is the child of faith. If we ever get
to that place where we can really give thanks in everything, we will have to
possess a real and vital faith in God. We will have to believe that Paul spoke
the truth when he said, “All things work
together for good to them that love God.”
And we know that all
things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called
according to His purpose. Romans
8:28
It’s a rare flower indeed, the alibility to be
truly thankful in al circumstances.
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