Dr. Ray Pritchard Christian Blog and Commentary

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Consider the Hostas

  • Dr. Ray Pritchard
    Dr. Ray Pritchard is the president of Keep Believing Ministries, an Internet-based ministry serving Christians in 225 countries. He is the author of 29 books, including Stealth Attack, Fire and Rain,… More
  • Published Apr 13, 2005

This morning I noticed the hostas were starting to come up out of the ground. We have a long row of them by the sidewalk in front of our house. Here's the amazing thing to me. On Monday when I was working in the yard, there were no hostas visible anywhere. It might as well have been the middle of January.


On Monday, no hostas.

On Wednesday, hostas everywhere.

 

That amazed me, and still does. The plants aren't full-grown, of course. Just a few green shoots popping out of the ground. But in 48 hours we went from brown dirt and dried-up leaves to a long row of young green shoots climbing out of the ground. In a few weeks, the hostas will fill in the space until you can't even seen the dirt.

It seems like a parable to me. Life can change so suddenly, and often for the better. One day all you see is brown dirt and dried-up leaves. A day or two later there are green leaves everywhere. The essence of hope is to believe that beneath the dirt the green leaves are making their way to the surface. Just because you don't see them today doesn't mean they won't be there tomorrow. To everything there is a season, and a reason. God can change things for the better, and sometimes he does it very quickly. To paraphrase Jesus, consider the hostas and how they grow.


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