"The best things in life come from the result of being wounded. Wheat must be crushed before becoming bread, incense must be burned by fire before it's fragrance is set free. The earth must be broken with a sharp plow before being ready to receive the seed." Frederick William Robertson.
It is a broken heart that God can use. I always say that the deeper the puncture, the deeper God fills us with all his goodness, if we let Him. A rose must be crushed to get the sweet fragrance, herbs must be crushed for us to receive the vibrant aroma and grapes must be crushed to bring forth wine. I am amazed every time I go to my garden to pick tomatoes at how my hands take on the robust smell of the fruit just by breaking the stem. The vine offers its brokenness to me as a sacrifice, I raise my hands up to my face, breath it in and wonder in amazement at the fresh scent that only something given to us by God could produce! As it is the same to be broken in life, we emit the love and grace of God, our True Vine, if we choose to let the brokenness make us better, rather than bitter.
Phillip Doddridge wrote, "Oh, that we would maintain our spiritual composure under the darkest of circumstances; and that in the midst of everything, we would delight ourselves with a sacred joy in God and have cheerful expectations of Him!
We can have crushing blows to our lives and not come through to the other side with broken spirits! After being crushed, the rose bush still blooms, the herb garden still grows and the vines live on long after the grapes have given of themselves. These things of nature have nothing but cheerful expectations and an innate desire from their Creator to sacrifice, so as to bless others. May we desire to be so also!
A man is not determined great by what he can acquire but by what he can give up (author unknown). The same can be said of the rose.
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed! 2 Corinthians 4:8,9
The longer we sit in the garden, the more we take on its fragrance! Just as, the longer we sit with our Savior, the more we reflect His character.
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