Emotionally, I have this constant worry about lack of money. What does this say about me? Matthew 6 says that if you worry about what you'll eat or wear, you're worshipping money. According to that ancient text, "You cannot serve both God and money. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life - whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear" (Matt 6:24-25).
Do I worry about what I should eat or wear? Of course. Who doesn't? And perhaps that's why, as Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes - not John Calvin, although he's the namesake of the six-year old Calvin) says, the world is going to hell, so to speak.
How could I not worry about what I should eat or wear?
Look at the flowers of the field, how they neither toil nor spin. And yet they're clothed in more glory than Solomon. (Matthew 6, again.)
They're naked, you know, those flowers. Maybe I should look at naked glory. What would that mean? Take care of the body, that's for sure. But let's look deeper.
The flowers are rooted in good soil. They have sun and water enough. These are the assumptions, from looking at flowers that are healthy. Soil, sun, water. And that's all they need, isn't it? That, and the fact that no creature has come along to eat them or no lovestruck adolescent has plucked them to play "he loves me, he loves me not".
What is my soil, sun, water? Soil - the territory where I am planted. It has to mean more than the place where I was born or live, because that does not guarantee me passive sustenance, the way it does a flower. The flower's roots extract sustenance from the soil by way of capillary action (same for water). What is it in my life that is so natural, that I extract sustenance from it by way of "capillary action" - that is, just as a matter of course? What activity can I draw sustenance from, "merely" by following the internal leading of the divine Spirit?
What is the sun? It is light. Heat, yes, but light, mostly, as far as the flower is concerned. Flowers can survive in all but the most extreme cold - in fact, in moderate cold, they thrive. So, what is essential for the flower is the light of the sun. That is its source of energy.
What is my light? My energy? It is truth, God's truth. "Thy word is truth", Jesus said to the Father. My sun, my light, my energy, is the Word and words of God.
What is my water? Come to me and drink - that's what Jesus said to the woman who'd come to draw water from a well. Water fulfils a primal longing - a thirst that exists on a cellular level. Earth gives the building blocks, light gives the energy, but water is the essence of biological life, forming three quarters of human mass, and probably a corresponding proportion in plant life as well - perhaps, more.
Water symbolises communion with the divine. Come to me and drink, Jesus said. He also said, "You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life" (John 5:39-40). Water is that mystical union of human and divine.
Soil, sun, water. Innate ability, divine truth, supernatural union.
Very conceptual, once again. Let me try and break it down. This is what soil, sun and water mean to me. "Soil": The ability (more like a primal urge) to write what is "on my heart". "Sun": Divine truth as revealed in the study of revealed Scripture and created nature. "Water": Mystical union that comes from a heart's inclination to the Christ; a total dedication of will and allegiance to the Divine.
That's what it means to me. The only factor that changes from flower to flower is the species of that flower and the type of soil it grows in. So, for a person, what changes is the intrinsic God-given talents she has, and whether those talents match the environment she finds herself in. Unlike flowers, we can get up and move to a more appropriate environment for our design. Once again, this is not narcissistic - a dead or wilting flower is of no benefit to anybody. Fertiliser, perhaps, but that is a one-time gift for the end of the road.
What is your God-given talent? What are your innate abilities? And crucially - what is your conducive environment that brings those divine gifts to the fore? Do you need help discovering them?
Lydia Netzer
