From our International Director

Posted on 31 July 2010.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow." So said Jesus in Matthew 6:28.

Please allow me this month to share a botanical message, though about sunflowers and not lilies!

My wife and I have been taking a brief break in France, staying with her brother who owns a house there. While on prayer walks through the beautiful French countryside (where we are staying is very rural), we have been impacted by beautiful French sunflowers.

Firstly, when we arrived, the sunflower fields (which are very large) were entirely green. There were no flowers to be seen. Then one day a few yellow ‘heads' were to be seen, and within three days the field was covered in yellow flower heads. As you probably know, when in bloom sunflower fields are a riot of beautiful yellow. I see this as a parable of prayer. Our Father God can cause fields in which we work to change from ‘flower-less' to beautiful in answer to prayer. So much is there which He can draw out in answer to prayer - in China, in the lives for whom we pray, in our own lives. God can do that for you!

Secondly, the sunflowers turn during the day to face and follow the sun, to draw in the warmth and nurture of its heat. So as we walk past the fields, we are amazed that every flower is facing in the same direction - towards the sun. What a parable and a challenge for us and for the work in China in which we are engaged - face the Son, stretch out to Him, to seek His face and His work in our lives. It happens because God has created something amazing. Wikipedia says: "At sunrise, the faces of most sunflowers are turned towards the east. Over the course of the day they follow the sun from east to west, while at night they return to an eastward orientation. This motion is performed by motor cells in the pulvinus, a flexible segment of the stem just below the bud." So if you are struggling in your prayer life, ask the Lord to do for you what He does for the sunflower - to enable you to turn towards the Son all day.

Thirdly, some fields ripen before other fields. The field nearest where we are staying is brilliant yellow, whereas other fields have not yet begun to bloom. Again, what an encouragement that is not to give up when others seem to be blessed more than us. Keep facing the Son, and our time will come for blossom and fruitfulness. Don't compare or despair. Just trust and obey and pray in faith.

"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" (Matthew 6:28-30)

Take one of the six previous topics which has especially impacted you and spend time asking the Lord to bless that ‘field' with a turning from green to brilliant yellow, with fresh life from God!

China's church grew partly as a result of the amazing prayer of believers there in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Ask the Lord to quicken again and restore that prayer life in His church in China.

Ask the Lord to encourage those indigenous Chinese workers and those foreigners labouring inside China who feel discouraged and "left out" of His blessing when they look at other seemingly "more successful" workers. Ask God to help them to believe His blessing will come for them in His time.