Gardenias

Gardenias are my favorite.

Actually I have several favorite flowers, just as I have several favorite children, and gardenias are definitely one of them.

I only tried to grow them once. And I failed miserably. As such, I am reduced to sniffing the neighbor's gardenias, and I do this unabashedly.

(They haven't called the police on me yet, so I'll continue...)

I hadn't noticed them blooming yet until one morning last week. They were blooming near the house on the corner of the block where I walk. I noticed them, and made no haste going over and burying my face in them.

I breathed deeply over and over again. Their scent fills me with such joy.

A friend used to have a ginormous bush in her yard, and she allowed me not only to sniff them, but to also cut branches to take home. I'd put them in my window sill in the kitchen, where I seem to spend most of my time, and smell them until they finally withered.

Then I would go get more.

I really love gardenias.

It was such a treat to find them for the first time this season. I wondered how long they had been there before I noticed them.

And then a strange thing happened.

Their scent is noticeable from the street. After pausing to plunge my face into their fragrance that morning, now each time I pass the yard, I can smell them. And I couldn't before. Now that I got re-acquainted with their smell, I can recognize it from a far. And even today, almost a week, later as I passed, I could smell them from where I walked on the street.

But I couldn't before.

The Spiritual truth was poignant.

I am currently obsessed with 1 Kings 19. It's become my favorite chapter in the Bible.

Okay, so I have several favorite chapters.  (I am sensing a theme here.) And this has become one of them.

1 Kings 19:11-12

So He said, "Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD." And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing.


...a gentle blowing...

God revealed Himself in the gentle blowing of the wind.

When is the last time I stopped to listen to the sound of a gentle blowing?

A wind that whips around the house, shaking it to the foundation?

Yes.

A gentle wind?

Not so much.

Yet I want to spend time with the Lord, breathing deeply of Him and His fragrance so that when the scent of Him floats across the wind, I will sense Him and respond.

Our pastor has said that "God does not reveal the intimate things of His heart to those who casually come and go." I want to visit Him in prayer and in His Word and in worship and linger there. I want to be quiet and still and hear loudly the gentle wind that He is.

Wrathful and holy and mighty and strong and fierce, yet gentle too...

My commentary paraphrases the Lord's message to Elijah by saying, "My still small voice brings the Word to the listening ear and heart. Yes, there's a time and place for the wind, the earthquake and the fire, but most of the time, I speak to people in tones of gentle love and quiet persuasion."

Am I still and quiet enough to hear?

What if I hadn't stopped by that gardenia bush that day? Would I enjoy smelling it each day as I run by? What would I have missed out on if I hadn't stopped?

What am I missing by rushing past the Lord to meet my own needs and wants?

What do I risk for a lost and dying world that so desperately needs Him?

Oh, 2 Corinthians 2:15:

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing...


I am desperate to spend Him with Him so that His presence is all over me, inside and out, filling me so that it spills out of me and flows to a world that needs to see Him in me and hear His truth from my mouth.

As those flowers send their scent on the wind, I pray that He sends His out of me.

The Lord has shown me afresh that He is all I need. Spending time with Him, both in concentrated study and fellowship with Him in His Word and communing with him through prayer and worship, are the things what will nourish and sustain me.

And pour His scent over me.

And while I am obsessed with Elijah, I remembered the time he sat by his brook waiting on the Lord. Why? To ready him for what was to come.

I am glad to wait by my brook today. For however long He chooses.

To wait well.

And while waiting, what a joy to experience the fragrance of Him in the gentle wind.