From Bud To Bloom :)

This morning in my time with the LORD, I read Ephesians 1:1-10 . As I read, I decided to slow down and break the Scripture up (as I’ve been learning to do in my Inductive Bible Study class, looking up the Greek of many of the verbs and terms) and see what the LORD would show me. A theme verse in my time here in Hungary has been Psalm 116:7, which says, “Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.” So when I came to verse 8 of Ephesians 1, I was drawn to what it said, that “He made [the riches of His grace] abound to us in all wisdom and prudence.” I looked up “abound” on Blue Letter Bible and its definition is as follows: “a thing which comes in abundance, or overflows unto one, something [which] falls to the lot of one in large measure.” But at the bottom of the page was a little box, which read, “‘Abounding’ is used of a flower going from a bud to full bloom.” :)

What a thought! That the riches of His grace abounding to us are what make us as humans bloom into the full beauty of what we were made to be. You can definitely say that a bud of a flower is still a flower; but it is not a flower in its final, most glorious state. Humans apart from Christ are flower buds—we are meant to go on to full bloom in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, according to the riches of His grace. No one looks at a flower bud and says, “Wow, what a perfect flower bud!” No, we expect more of it, and are, in fact, disappointed if it never blooms. And yet the state of every soul upon entering the world is in this bud-like state.

It gives me such hope to think of humanity in this way. Salvation is for all—every flower is meant to bloom. We are all meant to come into the fullness of our glory under the radiance of His—just like a flower comes into the fullness of its glory under the radiance of the sun. We were created to bloom in the light of our Savior, the Son. This is why the Psalmist cries, “Cause Your face to shine on us!” God desires to bring us all into the glory of His grace—for us all to be blessed, holy, without blame, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, to use the words of this Ephesians text.

May we view our non-Christian friends—and the non-Christian world in general—in this way—as buds needing just a little light to burst forth into a beautiful bloom! And, remember—in Christ, we are just like this beautiful bloom :) We are predestined for blessing and holiness and blamelessness because of the redemption by His blood. Praise God for turning this little bud into a beautiful flower!