We had a very rainy and wet winter this year in Arizona. After months of heavy snow, rains, and flash floods things are finally tapering off to normal.

Of course the moisture is good for our drought-stricken state. But much damage and even loss of lives was the result as well. Now we are in Sedona, my wife and good friends the Fuque’s. We are hiking the Devil’s Bridge trail and, out of an abundance of caution for my own neurological issues, I am stopped just short of the destination to rest while they continue on.

Sitting here I am listening to God breath His divine breath as winds through the trees and marvel at the views I can see from my elevated position. I am also bombarded by the sounds of people along the trail in different stages of jubilation as well as despair.

It is strange to me that anyone could be in poor spirits on this hike. Yet here is a woman walking along sniffling and holding back tears as her daughter tries to comfort her, apparently the result of an argument and mean things said by a husband who remains at the top of the trail while they return to the car. 

I listen as two young people argue the merits of different forms of transcendentalism and new-aged spirituality: the girl insisting on the palpable feeling of a local vortex while the boy insists she is crazy. They continue down the trail and people don’t even seem to notice them.

Another group of young people, apparently on break from college, are in a heated discussion of the mistreatment of “mother earth.” They point out the obvious repercussions of this inhumane treatment by local fanatics in the form of rebellion the earth is taking against mankind. This rebellion is evidenced by global warming, local flooding, various earthquakes in areas where they never used to occur, and the general feeling of coldness and despising people have for one another. 

All of this is an incredible irony as I reflect on what I am hearing and consider that scripture has pointed to this ALL ALONG! And yet people are unable or unwilling to hear or understand it. They attribute all these things to causes they feel they can control by appealing to and appeasing false gods in the form of a deified earth and nature. 

I consider Isaiah 1 in which the prophet is given God’s stern admonishment of His people for turning away from Him. He won’t even accept their acts of contrition in the form of sacrifices, prayers and incense because they have become just that: ACTS. I consider how this applies today, even in the very church Christ set up, as so many go through the motions and yet live ungodly lives, thinking their acts of contrition or belief in Jesus will be enough. Yet God never changes and He has proven time and again that He will not accept motion without devotion.

I consider the verses in Matthew 24 that describe to the word the events discussed by the college kids who misplace the causes of these events to an angry planet rather than an angry Creator. It saddens me to see and hear the very things I preach about every week playing out on the trail below me.

When my despair is greatest, I look to my left and see a small, solitary cactus with a bright purple bloom. And on the breeze I hear God’s voice. He tells me to look at that bloom amidst the brown and drying earth and vegetation of this high desert. Nestled on top of a cruel, spine-riddled cactus is a flower most beautiful. In an area of parched earth with twisted twigs for bushes and rough-barked pines jutting from dirt-covered rocks, one spark of color changes the very landscape! 

“What are you doing to spread My beauty among the thorns of the people you are contemplating?” I hear the voice ask. “For in the midst of all the ugliness, My people are to be Holy and set apart, standing tall and beautiful amidst the oppressive evil of the world,” He reminds me. 

We have a duty to spread Christ’s message of holiness and light to the darkened world. Eventually the heat of summer will overcome the flower. But while it is here, it is doing it’s duty of shining its radiance among the thorny and rough terrain. While we are here, vastly outnumbered and seemingly overwhelmed, we have a duty to fulfill. We must be the beauty of God in a world that has forgotten Him. We must spread the truth to as many as will hear it until God decides our work is done and He calls us home.

It is no small duty and not to be taken lightly. The earthly rewards for this work are few. But the ultimate reward has no comparison! The flower does not concern itself with the negativity around it. It simply does what it does. Likewise, we must not concern ourselves with worldly approval. We only have to be approved by God! Be that solitary flower!