Sue flew down to Adelaide just before Christmas for a long overdue visit with her sister and family. I was left at home with the kids, an almost blind dog and an aloof, hair-dropping cat. Is there any other type? It was all pretty simple – make sure the kids and animals were fed, the washing done and the floors swept before Sue returned. As my friend Peter says, 'Happy wife, happy life.' I was pretty pleased with myself as I drove Sue home from the airport. I thought I had ticked all the boxes - until she saw the state of her much-loved plants. I had forgotten to water them.
Things were a little tense at home as Sue triaged plants – thankfully resuscitating them with some water and sorely missing TLC. I think I was as relived as they were. It got me thinking. Leonard Sweet recently tweeted a challenge to the church to stop watering ‘dead flowers’. By this I took him to mean to stop pouring time, resources and effort into programs, activities and ways of being church that are no longer productive – on life support at best, dead and fruit-less at worst. While the message of the gospel never changes, the method and mode of its delivery must always adapt to changing culture. For too long too many churches have watered ‘dead flowers’ when precious resources could have been directed more productively elsewhere.
What is true for churches generally is also true for us individually. We are far better at beginning, rather than finishing things. Christian psychologist Henry Cloud speaks of the ‘necessary endings’ required for healthy life. As a New Year beckons, what are some ‘necessary endings’ in your life? What ‘dead flowers’ is God challenging you to stop watering? The bible tells us there is a season for every activity under heaven, including a time to plant and a time to uproot (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2). By all means plant new things in 2013. But don’t forget to uproot from time to time.
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