One of my favorite little surprises this time of year is the sudden annual appearance of the wisteria blooms that line my walk with Mr. Bingley along Lassiter Mill Road. Or more specifically on one section of the road across from Root Elementary. It's worth braving the steady hum and rush of traffic along the route to meander past those fragrant showy blossoms and inhale their intoxicating perfume. If you're zooming past in your car, slow down and look over when you get to the bridge--although they're starting to fade now, you can still see them.
I took several lovely pictures of them the other day, but for the life of me, I cannot get them to download on this blog. Oh mercy, technology truly drives me insane! I started to give up and go do something else entirely (something easier and more mindless like eating a snack or scrolling through emails) but then thought better of it. Nope, time to buckle down and write. Time to reestablish a habit that I've been woefully neglecting while working on Bible study lectures.
So sorry, no pretty pictures, but here's my silly little unadorned musing...
Wisteria, it turns out, is a vine. Actually, the seeds in the pods can be poisonous and cause severe stomach distress if consumed (just in case you were enticed by that delectable purple color). And I guess you might characterize it as a parasite since it has to have something else to cling to in order to grow. People don't often specifically and purposely plant wisteria. Rather, wisteria seems to have more of a mind of it's own and simply starts to grow...and cling...and twist around and around it's host.
You have now learned the vast extent of my botanical knowledge about wisteria. But I couldn't help but think of that line from Livingston Taylor's song from many years ago: "There are flowers in my garden. Pretty ones all in a row. But my favorite are the weeds. They don't know where to grow...but they know enough to grow."
That's the Lassiter Mill wisteria if you ask me. That wisteria may not know where to grow, but it knows enough to grow.
Nobody planted it; nobody fertilizes it; nobody prunes it; nobody waters it--except the Perfect Gardener. He knows just what that wisteria needs to grow and prosper so that it can gently perfume and adorn a bustling corridor of a busy city. And so that wisteria clings to the branches around it, draws from the soil that the Gardener provided and soaks up the sun He created...and it thrives.
And I'm thinking, maybe that's just the tiniest picture of what it means to abide. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me." (John 15:4)
To abide in Christ. To cling to Him, to draw from and soak in His life-giving Word. To moment by moment depend upon Him. To go where He bids us to go and to stay when He bids us to stay. To simply do the next right thing in love that He sends our way. And all the while to abide with Him and in Him. To "Abide in My love" (John 15:9)
If you're anything like me, you have so many weaknesses, so many foibles and frailties. But surely we can simply cling to and abide in Him and His love. Like that wisteria, we can daily seek to draw nourishment and strength from His Word. He's the One who will provide all we need to grow and thrive...but we have to daily, hourly, choose to abide. Abide in the One who is all, who has all, who is perfect forgiveness, love, faithfulness, wisdom, power, peace, joy, strength, grace.
When we have such a glorious, all-sufficient, all-loving One in whom to abide, why on earth would we choose to go it alone? All I know is a wisteria that's not clinging and abiding will wither and die. But when that vine does what the Gardener intended and clings, draws, soaks, abides, that wisteria thrives and blooms...and perfumes...and brings glory to Almighty God. Might we do the same. He is able...and He is infinitely worthy.
To God be the glory.
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