A few months back, a friend sent me a message telling me that she had been praying for the city where I was planning to move and plant a new ministry. As she prayed, the thing that kept coming to her mind was pink roses. She saw a picture of them being planted around some of the places in the city, and she said she got a “sense of surrounding old things with life again.”
Not long after I received that message, I began to see pink roses all over the place. The front garden of my house in Belfast had pink roses blooming from just after I received that message for the two months until I made the big move to my new city, where I continue to see them frequently.
So, what’s the significance? It’s great to have the idea of bringing new life to a place, but I began to wonder if there was anything more that God wanted to speak to me about this. One afternoon, I decided to look up the “meaning” of pink roses. I knew yellow roses were meant to symbolize friendship, and red typically symbolizes love and romance, but I had no idea what pink ones mean.
The first result that popped up on the web search said they symbolize several things including joy and grace. I got excited because those are two of the traits I want to embody as I do life and ministry. What great attributes to help bring new life to a place.
As I continued to read the short description, the final sentence stopped me in my tracks. “They are seen as a token of admiration when given to someone.” Just after I read those words, I looked out the window at the beautiful roses blooming just outside, and it was as if God was whispering to my heart that He admires me…? Wait, what?
I know that God loves me, delights in me, has chosen and redeemed me. Sure, there are moments when doubt about some of those facts creeps in, but I know each of those statements to be true. But admiration? To admire means to respect and esteem, and that is not a word I would ever have dreamed of putting in that list.
I can imagine God loving me and being delighted with me and choosing to rescue me. I might do those same things with a helpless animal I feel compassion for. But respect? Esteem? Admiration? God knows who I really am and what I’ve done and not done. He knows my failures and faults. Compassion makes sense to me, but admiration blows my mind.
In this season when the actual ministry I’m able to do feels so limited, (and at times my motivation for prayer and other things I can do is minimal), it’s easy to feel I’m not doing enough. I feel like I should be accomplishing so much more than I am based on what I can see.
In God’s faithfulness, He notices those moments when I begin to beat myself up, and there is yet another pink rose along my journey. You see, God is only concerned with obedience and a heart to follow Him. When He finds those, He holds them with esteem, no matter how we see the results of that obedience.
Today, maybe you feel like you’re not doing enough… Keep an eye out for God’s reminders that simple obedience is enough, and He looks with admiration on hearts who seek Him and His kingdom.
