“I am the truth.”
If we understand, if we love the flower, we have that for which the science is there, that which alone can equip us for true search into the means and ways by which the divine idea of the flower was wrought out to be presented to us. The idea of God is the flower; his idea is not the botany of the flower. Its botany is but a thing of ways and means—of canvas and color and brush in relation to the picture in the painter’s brain. The mere intellect can never find out that which owes its being to the heart supreme. The idea of God is the flower: he thought it, invented its means, sent it, a gift of himself, to the eyes and hearts of his children. When we see how they are loved by the ignorant and degraded, we may well believe the flowers have a place in the history of the world which we are yet a long way from understanding, and which science could not, to all eternity, understand. Watch that child! He has found one of his silent and motionless brothers, with God’s clothing upon it, God’s thought in its face. In what a smile breaks out the divine understanding between them! Watch his mother when he takes it home to her—no nearer understanding it than he! It is no old association that brings those tears to her eyes; it is God’s thought, unrecognized as such, holding communion with her. She weeps with a delight inexplicable. It is only a daisy! Only a lily of the field! But here is a truth of nature, a perfect thought from the heart of God, a divine fact, a dim revelation! Who but a father could think the flowers for his little ones? We are close to the region now in which the Lord’s word is at home—“I am the truth.”
Commentary
by Earle Canty
Unless one is a botanist, flowers have very little, if any, appeal to the intellect. Their appeal is solely and simply to the heart. Flowers, which God in His infinite wisdom and because of His deep love for His children created, are beautiful! They may vary in the extent to which they are beautiful, but even the least beautiful flower is quite beautiful. When someone brings or sends flowers to another, it is a gift from one heart to another, and it is given with the intent to show love.
Belief in God is not an intellectual exercise; it is a heart exercise. No one has seen the Father (Moses may be an exception), and only a relatively small number of people saw Jesus and witnessed the miracles He performed. For all others, believing that He was who He claimed to be requires faith in the unseen {John 20:29}, and the heart is the source of that faith, not the mind. The truth is that God is love. The entire ministry of Jesus was a manifestation of His love for man. Every miracle he performed, even his rebukes of the Jewish leadership, was done because of that deep and abiding love. What other explanation can there be for Jesus and the gift of salvation and eternal life that he brought to mankind by obediently doing the Father’s will {John 3:16}? Reflection on the beauty of flowers and the simple, but vitally important gift they manifest, and the realization that they were created by the One who knows mankind like no other, should open eyes to the fact that Jesus is indeed the truth. The Father created flowers to show His love for us and for us to show our love for others, and He sent His flower, Jesus, to graciously shower us with the truth of His love.
The picture below was painted by my beloved Jolyn. The flowers are Cone Flowers, perennials that will come back each Spring.
