How To Blossom In The Hard Places

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It’s that time of year when everything is growing and blooming like crazy in Maine, so that means our yard is finally alive with resplendent color… and constantly coated with a thin film of yellow pollen. It somehow finds its way into every corner of my house, prompting my inner clean freak to wipe surfaces incessantly and creating the need for me to take an allergy pill daily. But just when I start to get really annoyed, I pass by the snow shovels in our garage and immediately adjust my attitude with the not-so-distant memory of long, dark icy days when nothing can survive in my yard.

Without that much-needed attitude adjustment, I doubt I would’ve even noticed the most remarkable thing in my yard. Early one morning this week, I was looking out my window and saw a determined purple iris growing right out of an area covered in gravel and rocks. Just feet away, there was soft, fertile earth beckoning, but that single iris was growing right where it was originally planted many, many years ago by the previous owner of our property. Because we’ve lived in this location for more than a decade, I was not only surprised by the perennial’s hardiness, but equally disappointed by my lack of attention to it before.

As I pondered the struggle the iris must face each year to rise up among stones and then blossom in unpleasant conditions, I couldn't help but think about the times in our lives when God plants us in places we don’t want to be in. He sees the hard, unforgiving stones and gravel as opportunities for growth, and we tend to see them as nothing but bad luck, adversity, and disappointment. He wants us to learn to depend more on Him and become a bright spot of color on an otherwise barren landscape. But we tend to focus on the lack of comfort and companionship, and beg the Master Gardener to plant us somewhere else… anywhere else.

When we enter a season of life that places us in unfamiliar terrain that is rough and demanding, we may feel the angled, painful edges of rocks around our hearts, minds or bodies. Sometimes we resist, wilt and give up. Sometimes our stubbornness kicks in and we try to push through even when we know we shouldn’t go in a certain direction. And other times we do what God calls us to do — to completely trust Him, even in the midst of extreme discomfort. This means persevering, praying and waiting on Him for strength, relief, or perhaps replanting somewhere else next spring. When this time of waiting and endurance happens, whether you are in that difficult place for an hour, a day, a month, a year or a decade, you will always come out of it having leaned into Jesus more deeply and more fully than you could have ever imagined.   

Unfortunately, many believers never experience the kind of joy that flows from a heart that accepts God’s sovereignty to either place us in — or allow us to be taken to — a hard place. Sovereignty: now that’s a word you don’t hear every day. While most of us probably think of a monarch, like the Queen of England, the truth of the matter is that no king, president or dictator in history has ever possessed real sovereignty, which is defined as “supreme power and authority.” God tells us in Daniel 4:25 that, “The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.”

Wow. Think about that. That’s hard for you and me to swallow, isn’t it? What about cruel dictators or embarrassing world leaders? What about our personal pain, like cancer, a job loss, or a failing relationship? What about the dreams God has planted in our hearts that seem to take years to materialize? The trials of life and negative thoughts come at us from every angle and Satan will attempt to use every single one of them to make us doubt God’s sovereignty. That’s because the evil one knows that our belief and unwavering trust in God’s authority and power is crucial for our spiritual “success” in life.
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Imagine being an early follower of Jesus in the years of hardship after His resurrection and ascension. The apostle Peter was crucified upside down for the cause of Christ. Paul was beaten, jailed, bitten by a snake, and suffered great personal affliction on an ongoing basis throughout his life. They, and the countless believers who suffered gracefully in the centuries that followed, all looked to Jesus as a role model for accepting and thriving under God’s sovereignty. When Jesus was enduring the beating, the ridicule, and agony of his trial and crucifixion, He laid His life down of His own accord in willing surrender to his Father’s sovereignty (John 10:18). We know from scripture that He had to be willing to surrender and play the position God had put Him in. Luke 22:42 tells us that Jesus earnestly pleaded with God about the difficult position He faced: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done.”

Waiting, seasons of suffering, and learning to glorify God in the role He’s placed you in is an uncomfortable thing to ponder. If you’re in a season of comfort and rest right now, going back to a place of stone and striving is not something you want to think about. The subject of God’s sovereignty can also be unsettling and even divisive depending on who you’re talking with about it. Yet understanding it, accepting it, and trusting in this attribute of our Heavenly Father is one of the most important keys to finding true peace and joy in this life.

Most importantly, the very existence of God’s sovereignty means we are not in control. Acknowledgment of this fact, and the ramifications of it in our lives, is the most uncomfortable feeling of all. The majority of people spend a lifetime denying God’s sovereignty and struggling needlessly with the stony places. The more they resist being where God has placed them, attempt to control the situation, and try to change things on their own, the more hardness and bitterness take over. And before any of us think that denial is always obvious and overt, remember the last time you worried about something or coveted something… even a little thing. Anytime we allow the desire for something we don’t have, whether it’s a person, a feeling, a healing, an opportunity, or material possessions, to take up more of our thoughts, actions and time than our desire for God, then we are denying His sovereignty.

So the next time you’re upset about something that seems unfair, wrong, unbearable and utterly insurmountable, remember that while you may not understand it, God is sovereign and His knowledge, foresight and complete love for us far surpasses anything that our very, very small minds can fathom. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

When you stop fighting the place where He’s planted you and you learn to depend on Him for every nutrient of life, you will blossom in the hard places, bringing the fragrance of hope and the color of God’s glory to the many struggling around you. When we root ourselves in love, we will then emanate that love to others, no matter where we’re planted (Ephesians 3:17-19).

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