Flowering Beauty

            As I write this reflection it is a little after two in the morning.  For some reason, I can’t sleep.  This has been happening quite frequently lately.  I’m not really sure why, but I keep waking up after a few short hours of sleep, getting up for a couple of hours, and then sleeping soundly the rest of the night.  I suspect it’s because there are so many random thoughts rolling around in my near empty head.  For instance, I have been taking pictures of flowers that I really know nothing about.  They’re just pretty, so I try and do them some digital justice with our Canon Rebel.  I consider how they have certain similarities – they each have some sort of stem, different shaped petals, some kind of inner workings, stamens, pistils, seeds, and other assorted parts.  They have to have these in order to be a flower.  However, as captivating as their beauty is, I’m struck by their diversity.  I understand that there are as many as a quarter of a million different types of flowers!  Yet, each one is still just a flower.  Each one belongs to the other, without any of them being able to deny the authenticity of the other.  And, aren’t we glad?  Suppose all flowers were exactly the same.  Would we appreciate their beauty as much as we do now?  Isn’t it awesome how God created flowers with such diversity?  Just imagine all the flowers you’ve seen.  You might have a favorite.  Although, I don’t really know how.  But, one can’t deny the beauty of most flowers.  Beautiful because they are so different, while being the same.
            Then I start to think of the other things found in nature that display the same kind of beauty through the diverse workings of our creator.  I consider all the different types of dogs – spotted, short, tall, furry, not-so-furry, long, small, large, fidgety, mild-mannered, aggressive, brown, yellow, black, white, red, tan.  All different, yet still the same – just dogs.  I’m sure you can think of many more examples, I know I can.  Why do we have such a difficult time seeing this same beauty, born of diversity, in the church?