Similar Yet Different

Today both my hibiscuses are blooming! Though the differences don’t show in the picture, the red hibiscus plant is tall and lanky, and the orange one is a small mound of dark green leaves. The red flower measures seven inches across while the orange is only four inches in diameter. And of course they sport different colors and petal structure. The red petals are long and curl back gracefully while the orange petals are shorter and curve only slightly. Yet they’re both hibiscuses. They’re both flowering plants. They’re both green, leafy plants. They’re both created by God to beautify his world. People also come in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors but we’re all people. In fact, every person who has ever lived on the face of the earth can trace their lineage to the first people on earth—Adam and Eve, and more recently than that, to Noah and his three sons and daughters-in-law. We’re all kin. We’re all God’s creation (though not “all God’s children” see Romans 8:14). One person is really tall and another is really short—so what? One person is black, another brown or white—so what? There’s only one race—the human race. Though we’re all one people, God likes variety in his plants and animals and in his people—it’s the spice of life.

Hope Instead

Where one leaf of the Hawaiian Ti plant had to be removed, six more have taken its place and are growing well. To me it’s a sign of hope that where one thing goes wrong, the Lord Jesus can bring in many good things to take its place. These new leaves are slow-growing but growing steadily.

Cold weather has returned with frigid, blustery winds. After “Noah’s flood”, God covenanted with Noah:

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Genesis 8:22).

Cold (“global warming” notwithstanding) and heat will never go away as long as we’re on this earth so we’d better learn to deal with them especially since they are a promise of good. What a paradigm shift!