There is nothing
in which deduction is so necessary as in religion," said he, leaning with
his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by
the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me
to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food,
are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose
is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a
condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again
that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
The Adventures of the Naval Treaty ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventures of the Naval Treaty ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
I have been out of the floral business for eleven years and now have the benefit of hindsight. While working in the shop I was surrounded with beauty, but I saw mostly thorns. I failed to understand that the blossoms are much larger than the thorns, and if we stand in the right position – in faith and trust in Him – we won't see the thorns at all.
But should one poke me, God will either heal me, or give me the strength to bear the pain. Either way, I gain hope from the flowers, sunrises, sunsets, spring rains, rainbows, birdsong, blue skies, and green trees, all of God's miraculous embellishments.
Jesus said as much in His Sermon on the Mount, “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these. Now, if God clothe in this manner the grass that is to-day in the field and to-morrow is cast into the oven: how much more you, O ye of little faith?” Luke 12:27-28