Ever since I was little, I've felt like I shouldn't ask God for frivolous things, and while I feel my parents and Sunday-school teachers were probably trying to prevent me from making bargains with God (God I'll be a good little girl if you just give me a pony) I began to feel guilty about asking God for anything that I didn't need. 

Only recently, I began to realize that there is nothing shameful about bringing anything before God. There is nothing good about feelings of shame that separate us further from God. There is nothing shameful in sharing anything from our lives with our Father in heaven. There is a vulnerability, and a closeness in sharing more than just our needs with God. 

Think about it. There is a voice that tells us not to bother God with anything non-essential, and that voice is not from God. If we only ask God for the things that we need we are treating him as we would a stranger, rather than the friend and father that we so desperately need. 

If your car breaks down and you don't have your phone, will you wait for a friend to happen by and help, or will you ask a stranger? If you are lost, wouldn't you ask a someone, even someone you don't know, for help? In times of need, we will turn to anyone who can help us. 

But would you hand out your Christmas list to a complete stranger? No, we share our wants with the people closest to us. Not that I am suggesting we should treat God like Santa Claus, and bring him our list and expect that if we are good He will simply give us everything. I am saying we should treat God like he is a close friend, or family member. Isn't that the relationship that we say we want with him?

Gardening and James 1

So I was gardening, and I came to a heart-breaking decision: I must prune my pansies. It was a shame, because they were beautiful.

If you didn't look close, they looked like gorgeous, healthy plants with lots of lovely blooms. But if you did look close, you would realize that they grew too fast. 

 The stems got too long, and underneath, there were bugs and mold and disease. I could have left them, and they would have continued to look beautiful for a few more weeks, and then they would have slowly turned yellow and died.

 Once I began cutting off the healthy-looking upper leaves, it became quite apparent that the damage was worse than I thought. I had to cut off nearly all the healthy-looking leaves and leave sad-looking yellow stems and spotted leaves. It looks sad, and dead, and nothing like the pretty flowers that were there this morning.

 The upper leaves and the flowers looked so beautiful, but the further down the stem you look, the more bug and disease damage there was.

When I finished, this is what it looked like. It's sad. 

As I was cutting my poor plants to bits, and wishing I didn't have too, I was thinking about a few verses. James 1:2-3 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance"

I'm sure that cutting off large branches isn't particularly pleasant for the plants. I'd consider it a trial for them. And after the trials, they don't look so good. In fact, they might die. But without pruning them, the disease, bugs and weeds would have eventually killed them anyway. In order to cut the plants I had to care about not just how they look now, but how they will look later this summer. I could have torn out the plants completely and put new ones in, and I wanted to give the old plants a chance. I have faith in the integrity of their roots. I think they are strong enough to survive this, and that they will be stronger and more beautiful in the future because I pruned them today. Maybe my faith is misplaced and they aren't strong enough to survive. Or maybe in a few weeks I will be posting more pictures of lovely, healthy pansies.