Thoughts on tulips

For those of you who live in Orange City, go to college in Orange City, or have passed through Orange City during the month of May, you know that this is the time of year when the beloved tulips bloom. Everywhere you go, the tulips are there serving as a reminder of the Tulip Festival coming in a few weeks. Or in my case, serving as a reminder to keep striving for Christ.

Today I walked around town (fulfilling my vow from an earlier blog to go outside) and saw tulips in all different stages of blossoming. Some tulip beds are completely blossomed. Others have half their tulips blossomed while the other half remains without any petals. Then there's the late-blooming beds with only one lone tulip in blossom.

These blossoming tulip beds reminded me of all of us Christians in our walks with God, each of us at a different stage of blooming. Some people are going strong with God (fully blossomed). Some are trying to reach that point but still have areas of their lives that they need to give over to God before they can be completely His. And some have just started out in their walks and need to be completely transformed by Christ.

There's nothing wrong with being in the latter two stages, as long as we aren't content with being in those stages. Just as we know that the partially bloomed tulip beds want to be fully-bloomed, so we also know that Christians need to strive to be completely alive in Christ.