What Grows Among the Rubbish

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 

1 Peter 4:8

The cluster of purple wild asters greeted me like a bouquet held out in the hands of a child. I paused my walk home and crouched down to take a closer look. Perfectly formed, delicate petals opened to reveal small yellow centers. They were a work of art. A pleasant focus at the end of a long, sweltering workday in the high heat of summer.

But as I rose to continue my journey, I noticed that clutched along the edge of the bouquet was a pile of trash. Someone had discarded used tissues on the ground, and from the look of it, the flowers had pushed the rubbish aside in their insistence to bloom.

Rising tall and ugly within a meter of the lovely purple blossoms was a port-a-john. The odor rose in the heat, causing me to cough in disgust.

Like the lovely cluster of purple asters growing beside the path, there are some Scriptures whose beauty draws our delighted attention. They stand out and we stop and examine them, perhaps plucking a few to take home to adorn our hearts. Such verses are often-quoted and committed to memory.

But also like the cheerful bouquet that grabbed my attention on a weary day, those lovely Scriptures, upon closer examination, often blossom in contexts that might make us uncomfortable. A surrounding environment that contrasts unpleasantly with their delightful beauty. What grows among the rubbish is surprising.

1 Peter 4:8 is a cluster of wild asters blooming in a discomfiting context.

Loving one another earnestly is a beautiful command that, when followed, can result in abundant life and peace.

The context is death to ourselves. What does it look like? It looks like piles of trash, the things we must dispose of to let our love become real and not fake. Piles called living for human passions, or idolatry. Unsavory things we must accept, such as suffering in the flesh, enduring misunderstanding, slander, or practicing self-control in a world of sensuality.

The apostle Paul holds out another bouquet among the rubbish in Romans 12:9:

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.

The way to love sincerely, to avoid pretending, is to get real with God first. Really love Him. Hate what is wrong in our hearts and ask Him to make it right. Bring the shame to Him and believe that Jesus’ blood is enough to make us clean. Hold tightly to the good news that we can love sincerely with God’s help! Then we can go out and love others the way we have been loved.

Real love is not hypocritical. It has gone first to God and seen the state of its own dirty soul and received His cleansing power. Sincere #love flows out of death to ourselves. Share on X

Sincere love pushes the trash of life aside and blooms.

Love grows among the rubbish.

Lord, make me Your aster, growing by the path of life and drawing others to stop and see Your love. Amen.

@audreycfrank

Image by Gabriela Piwowarska from Pixabay