On Clearance…

     For those of you who know me personally, you know my FAVORITE grocery store is Fresh & Easy!  One of the many many reasons I LOVE Fresh & Easy is due to their clearance aisle.  You see, one of the many benefits of fresh food is that it doesn’t have a long shelf life. As a result, Fresh & Easy drastically discounts their food on the day of expiration & displays it in the clearance aisle.  Same thing with flowers & plants.  As you can see from my picture I snagged this sorry excuse of a flower for a mere $1.75.  I am now determined to bring this flower back to its beautiful state that I know it once was.  

     As I set the flower on my window sill I couldn’t help but see myself in that plant.  I sometimes feel like my flower has quickly faded & I am not who God made me to be.  I believe we are His beautiful creation which has the ability to bloom & shine.  However, life happens & sometimes our flowers dry up & our beauty fades.  We feel discouraged & wonder if we’ll ever bloom again.  We put ourselves on the clearance shelf. 

     It’s on the clearance shelf that we have to trust that God can restore us.  Like me & my vision for the above flower, God too has a vision for us.  God wants to take us off the clearance shelf & love us & nurture us back to the blooming flower we once were.  The question isn’t if He can do it, but rather, will we allow Him?  Sometimes, it’s easier to feel sorry for ourselves & wallow in our dejected state.  We stop praying, reading our Bibles & seeking God.  We stay in the moment, rather than seeking God to get us out the moment.  Here are some verses on being rejuvenated:

Colossians 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator

Titus 3:5  He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

So if you too feel like you’re flowers faded & you’ve been put on the clearance aisle, take heart!  I promise God won’t leave you there.  He too likes to restore the beauty from our sorry old state :)  How about it? Will you let Him?  I know I’m looking forward to my flower blooming once again as I’m continuing on to Caanan.

---