“Nana, look! This is my favorite flower!”

Our granddaughter Rachel was helping me water our flowers near our front porch and wanted me to show me something quickly. I was so surprised by her choice of a favorite flower – a bloom that I consider a weed. More alarmingly, it was just at the point where all the seeds are ready to fly away.

… and make more weeds!

Rachel obviously did not share my dismay. She was thrilled that it was ready for her to blow on and that she could watch each tendril float gently away on the breeze.

How differently we saw and responded to the very same plant!

As I thought about this I became aware of how frequently this situation occurs in life. People are faced with a common situation but respond very differently. One person sees an obstacle as a challenge to overcome while another person sees the same obstacle as a barrier that prevents them from moving forward at all.

So many factors influence how we respond to various situations. It may be our personality, our past experiences, our mood at that moment. Any parent with more that one child experiences these variations in response on a daily basis! A family outing is planned and one child is excited while another complains “that’s dumb, do I have to go?”

It would be a dull world if everyone liked all the same things. There would be no variety, nothing unique or different. Just think for a minute if there was –

only one kind of flower

only one flavor of ice cream

only one style of music

only one style of clothes

only one form of worship

God in in his infinite, creative wisdom created each human being as unique, and that uniqueness is more than just a one-of-a-kind fingerprint. We are different from one another in body, mind, personality, and spirit.

Conflict often arises because we don’t value one another’s differences – we think others should think and act like we do because we think we know best or our way is best. Paul addresses this very issue in Romans 12:3-6a

³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. ⁴ For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.

Dandelions are not my favorite flower, but I can see why Rachel likes them. There is something delightful about those weedy seeds floating away when you blow on them …

May God give us grace to celebrate the vast variety of his creation.

In My Garden With God #