The other day I learned something new!
Sunflowers follow the sun. Like, in the morning, they open up, and through the entire day their face is toward the sun! They move with it! When the sun moves across the skies, the faces of the flowers follow right behind!
(If you’re a Christian, I’m pretty sure you know where I’m gonna go with this. So yes, here’s a cheesy analogy for you. But it got me excited! So I’m sharing it!)
I feel like, as Christians, we should be sunflowers. Our entire existence should be focused around following Christ, following the Son, wherever He leads. Our faces should be always turned toward Him. And what’s more is… that’s how we should be defined! We should be defined as a people whose faces are always turned toward Him! That’s how we should be seen! People should not be able to think of us without thinking of God.
When you imagine a sunflower in your mind, how do you imagine it? For me, I see a small garden, with big, yellow (like they come in any other color) sunflowers, on a bright sun-filled day. In my mind, it looks like a day where, if you were inside, you could almost feel the warmth of the sun without even setting your foot out the door… That’s how it is in my mind! And to separate the sunflower from the sun just seems wrong. I have to actually make myself image a sunflower on a gloomy, sunless, rainy day… it just doesn’t seem natural. It’s just hard to separate the sunflower from the sun.
In our lives, it should be hard to be able to separate our actions, activities, personalities… anything, away from God. See, I think God should be our motivation for… everything! And that doesn’t mean living your life with your nose in the Bible all the time, either!
What I mean is… well, I don’t know how else to say it without an example so… I play the guitar. I love the guitar. I just truly cherish music as a whole, and the guitar has a way of… breathing music. When I hold a guitar, I have magic in my hands! And I just… love it. But, I really don’t want to simply get lost in my love of music. The way I see it is, God is the one who gave me a love for music in the first place! And I want to thank Him for giving me this love. So, when I act on this love by playing, I try to always make sure that I’m playing… for Him. But that’s so much easier said than done! Sometimes I have to remind myself when I play that I should never be playing for me. I should never be playing so people will say, “Oh wow. That song, did you just write it? You did? Seriously?! Wow… it was really good.” I mean, the handfuls of times where someone has been kind enough to say that has felt… really good. I like it when people like what I’ve played, especially when it’s something that I’ve written. And every now and then I’ll find myself in a situation where maybe I could show off a little, (not that I’m really all that great! But when you’re in a room of people who can’t play diddly-dot on any instrument, just a couple of strums with a few simple chord changes can leave them thinking you’re some sort of musical master-mind!) So, in those situations, if I let the focus of my music be… me, then what’s the point? There is no point, except to feed my own pride. So I have to check myself, and I have to check my motives, and sometimes I won’t even pick up the guitar because I’m not sure if I’m trying to show off myself, or if I’m trying to bless someone else through the words of the songs that God has laid on my heart.
I know to some people that will seem like an insanely over-thought process. I mean, for Pete’s sake, I’m playing a guitar! Big whoop! And maybe I have taken it too seriously, but… I never want to get in the way of someone else seeing God. If the lyrics I’ve written can touch someone’s heart, then I want to share them! Even if they’re funny lyrics! Sometimes humor is an amazing way to open people up! And it’s an amazing way to let people know that you love them! And if someone asks me to play something I’ve written, then I’m more than happy to share! But, I never want to allow myself to be the focus. Because, without God, I wouldn’t care one itty bitty bit about music. He gave me this love! And He gave it to me as a tool to glorify Him! And that’s what I always want to do with it…
So, what I’m trying to say is… don’t belittle the loves God has given you, because He gave them to you for a purpose, and that purpose was not to glorify yourself! So, don’t let yourself become the focus of your gifts. He has given them to you, and He deserves to be glorified and praised for blessing you with those unique qualities!
And seriously, do you really want to be that guy who only used his talents to raise himself? I mean, really. Once we die, does it matter how many compliments we’ve gotten in this life? No. It doesn’t. At all. But it does matter whether or not we’ve used our gifts to glorify Him. That… that really does matter…
You see, selfishness and pride are evil little things, and when left alone they can quickly grow into a big-little things; big, fat, ugly things that control every single aspect of your life. They hurt you, and they hurt the people around you. They are two things that, as a Christian, you have to keep in check at all times, because, other than really hurting people that God has put in your life, destroying you, your relationships, and sucking your joy out of everything, more than all of that is this: With selfishness and pride, you become center-stage, and you leave God to be the stagehand of your life. And that… That really doesn’t fly.
Think about this: If you saw a sunflower, and it was turned to itself; if it’s petals were touching on either side, and it was bent over its own stem, What would you think? You’d probably think it was ugly, wouldn’t you? It would be ugly! There would be something wrong with it! It would be unnatural!
If we love ourselves so much that all we do is focus on us, then we’re ugly too. We just look… wrong.
But, when a sunflower has its petals opened wide, and its face is turned completely to the sun, then it becomes absolutely breathtaking. So is a Christian whose eyes are focused on God. We become breathtaking, because we are not the focus, we are not center-stage, we aren’t even thinking about center-stage! Our only focus is Him.
What would a sunflower be without the sun?
What would a Christian be without Christ?
Lost.
Closed.
Useless.
Dead.
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