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bigmike

When Your Life Goes Up In Flames
I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24
When fire swept through Laguna Canyon near our office, one of the properties destroyed was a botanical garden containing more than two thousand varieties of plants and flowers. Known as the Hortense Miller Garden, the place was a veritable paradise of beautiful flowers and greenery. The fire, of course, blackened the hillside and left its ugly scars. Disaster? Yes! That’s what people called it, and that it was. Yet, just five months later, the hills were alive with the beauty of wild flowers which had not been seen in the area for thirty to a hundred years.
Here’s what happened. Years ago, before the area was converted into a garden, wild flowers covered the hillside, but these gave way to the domestic plants and shrubs that soon took over the sunlight and took the nourishment from the soil. The seeds of the wild flowers, however, lay dormant but not dead. Then came the fire—a disaster from a human standpoint—which burned most things to the ground, but allowed the sunlight and the rain to penetrate the dormant wild seeds which then sprang up in resurrection beauty.
“I wasn’t too happy about it (meaning the fire),” said Mrs. Miller, who owned the garden. But she added, “I think this is exciting.” It is different today from the formal, more stately garden which existed before the fire, but the beauty is still there—rearranged by a quirk of mother nature. What appeared to be a disaster turned into a different sort of beauty, one that could be arranged only by the hand of God. How much like life!
At times, what we first think or consider to be a disaster is simply the hand of God rearranging and redirecting our lives, which, at the time, we can never see or understand. “Failure,” said Roger Bannister, one of the first men to break the four‑minute mile, “is as exciting to watch as success, provided the effort is absolutely genuine and complete.”
The difference between a Christian and the person who considers life to be a disorganized and disconnected move of fate, is that the Christian believes God’s purpose and design is behind everything that happens though he cannot see the picture or the pattern at the time. He looks for the wild flowers after the fire.
“Truly, truly,” said Jesus, “I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). The confidence that God can bring flowers after the fire in your life stems from the assurance that God will not lie to you. Clearly the Bible promises, “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” There are times when you have to wait patiently for the flowers after the fire and that’s when you must walk by faith, taking life just one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time.
In my possession is a little piece of quilting made by Cambodian Christians who were once in a refugee camp in Thailand. Look at one side of the design, you see only the tattered threads and pieces of frayed material. But turn it over, and there is a beautiful pattern of different colors.
Following the fires, life looks pretty torn and tattered, but as we wait by faith, God will turn the fabric of life and eventually show you His design and pattern. Friend, the flowers will follow the fire as you wait on the Lord. If your life has been destroyed by fire, then be patient, friend. The flowers are soon to come.

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