“But the godly will flourish like palm trees…” (Psalm 92:12 NLT)
Yesterday I began devouring a new book: the Fight to Flourish by Jennie Lusko. I’ve mentioned the Luskos before, they pastor Fresh Life Church in Montana and lost their little girl to an asthma attack in 2012. In her book, Jennie shares the definition of the Hebrew word parah: to revive, blossom, to sprout, shoot, become apparent, or break out. And then she hones in on the Greek counterpart, anathallo: meaning revive or bring back to life. She explains to the the reader how the fight to flourish is not so much a battle to come something new as much as it is a reclaiming of who we were originally created to be. Jennie goes on to expound on her love for flora and fauna. She mentions the endangered Queen of the Andes.
I’m intrigued and, of course, a google search ensues. The Puya Raimondii is a rare palm-looking plant that grows at really specific elevations in the Bolivia and Peru. This plant features razor-sharp 5 foot long leaves at the base with a center spire that can reach fifty feet at maturity. The Queen of the Andes is a slow-growing species, but more interesting than that is it’s singular bloom cycle. The Queen will spend up to a hundred years gearing up for blossoms and a few short weeks in full bloom and then the plant expires altogether.
There’s a resonance between the Queen of the Andes and the life of a believer, isn’t there? We each experience such urgency to bloom. We fight to flourish into the original version of ourselves. And then, once achieved, we instantly slough off this shell and step into a reality far more satisfying than the one we know. For some reason, the I think of Palm Sunday and the people breaking off branches to celebrate their Savior.
“They took palm branches and went out to meet Him, shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!” (John 12:13 NLT)
We spend our brief and beautiful life best when we wave it in front of our Lord and King like an Old Testament offering. In the Tabernacle and the Temple, wave offerings were small portions of things, mainly bread, meat and wheat, waved in the air before the Lord to symbolize the entirety of a thing being dedicated to the Lord.
What if we lived like the rare and beautiful Queen of the Andes? What if we waved our branches and dedicated ourselves to the Lord? Our one, exquisite bloom will happen entirely for His glory. And then we’ll go Home to live in His beauty for always.
For the Queen of the Andes, blooming takes time and patience, plus complete surrender to the process. There is nothing left after the bloom – the plant has exhausted all of it’s resources in the fight to offer it’s life as beauty. That may be true of us, too. We spend our lives focused on that short but stunning flourishing – on reclaiming the image we were created to reflect. And in the light of eternity, the fight for flourishing is worth all our earthly efforts.
“The time is coming when Jacob’s descendants will take root. Israel will bud and blossom and fill the whole earth with it’s fruit.” (Isaiah 27:6 NLT)
Lord, give us courage to fight to flourish. Paint a real picture in our heads of what we were designed to be in You. Rally our souls toward that reality. Let our lives be wholly dedicated to You,
from here to eternity. Amen.