He grows His Roses On Our Barren Souls.
These gorgeous words come from a song that I’ve been listening to nonstop and in this season, they have become to me, a sweet anthem for my soul. This morning, I found these lyrics releasing a fresh melody of deliciousness into the atmosphere, as I read about Jesus’ crucifixion in the Gospels. As my thoughts lingered on each verse, I began to consider all the saints that had been raised from the dead, the very moment Jesus breathed His last at Calvary.
I suddenly found myself weeping as I read the account in Matthew, because I was so acutely reminded that God is in the business of making dead things alive. That, because He died, we get to live. Even when we may not even recognise that we are dead. Or when we think we have lost ALL hope. Or even when we don’t even ask God to revive us.
Yet to abide IN HIM - in the Resurrected One - IS to be FULLY ALIVE. And whether we ask for our dead places to be made alive again or whether we wonder if our dry bones can ever live, or whether we have become comfortable and complacent in our grave clothes…the bottom line is that Jesus takes dead things, dead people, dead situations and makes them alive. Fully ALIVE.
Even when all hope seems to be gone and even when our souls appear to be too barren to even conceive life. Even then, He is more than able and willing to resurrect every dead thing.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” Ephesians 2:4-5
I love this scripture. I have hung out in this verse for hours upon hours. It means so much to me, because I regularly find myself reflecting on the corpse that I once was. It’s truly insane to think that I once was a walking, talking, dancing, drug-taking, cigarette-smoking, bed-hopping, provocatively-dressing, makeup-adorning corpse…following the deadly course of this world…driven by sheer darkness and death.
And then Jesus being so rich in mercy and because of His great love, made me alive. He delivered and drew me to Himself out of the control and the dominion of darkness and transferred me into the kingdom of the Son of His love. It’s still insane to consider that such a thing is even possible. Yet that’s what He does. Because of His great and wonderful love, He resurrects corpses. He makes dead things alive. He miraculously breathes spirit and breathe into the driest of bones, He adds sinew, flesh, skin and makes that which was once dead, ALIVE…FULLY ALIVE.
As you read this post, I don’t know if there are dead places in your heart that need resurrecting today, or situations that seem impossible to resolve or relationships that seem utterly unreconcilable, but may I just remind you of God’s resurrection power and His crazy craaaaaazy love, which is actively working on your behalf today? May I also remind you that NOTHING is ever so dead that Jesus cannot explode it with His resurrection power and His kind intent and grow the most beautiful, sweetest of smelling roses in what might seem like the most barren of souls. x