Sunflowers & Me
Sunflowers are my favorite flowers. They bring together several of my favorite things: summer and sunshine, bees and birds, gardening, and weeding. (Yes, I like weeding. I’ll tackle that one in another post.)
I love how tall they stand with their bright faces facing the sun. They rise up with a kind of quiet confidence. Sunflowers are strong. Their stalks are thick and their roots are too. When they are mature, they are not easily uprooted. Sunflowers are unique. There is no other flower that grows as tall. I read that the tallest was over 25 feet tall and the circumference of one was 32 inches.
When I was a young girl sunflower seeds were my favorite treat. My mother would buy them for me at the Sears snack counter. Does anyone else remember when Sears had one of those? In the past few years, sunflower seeds have had resurgent popularity. They are used for oil, cooking in salads. They are even chocolate-covered. They usually have several bees around them all the time. The bees with their burden of pollen seem almost unable to leave the abundance of nectar they find.
But the main reason I like sunflowers is that they face the sun. Their faces literally follow the sun across the sky from dawn to dusk. This is called heliotropism. I want to be like that. I want to have Christ in my sight from the first moment I open my eyes in the morning till I close my eyes at night. Sunflowers have inspired me.
The other day I was reading about sunflowers and I found something interesting that got me thinking. The article said that sunflowers do not continue to follow the sun across the sky their whole life cycle. There comes a time in their maturity when their stalks get stiff. Yikes! I read that at a point in the sunflower’s stalk becomes fixed and it can no longer move its head.
That really caught my attention. I don’t want that to happen to me.
Remember in the Old Testament when God referred to the children of Israel as ‘stiff-necked’? He was saying that they were prideful, arrogant and obstinate. They were stubborn and hard-hearted, disobedient. They weren’t teachable. They weren’t willing to listen. They didn’t believe. For several generations the people of God, His chosen ones chose against Him. He proved Himself faithful over and over and yet they ignored Him and His prophets.
How did that happen? It seems impossible that the people that He had rescued and delivered would abandon Him. What went wrong? Well, they grew up and grew independent. They thought they could do it without Him. They thought they didn’t need Him. They grew self-sufficient. They got distracted, lost their focus, got off course. Before long they were off in their own world without Him.
As awful as that sounds, I am in danger of the same thing. I am getting older, figuring some things out, easily distracted and often losing my way. I forget how much I need Him until I am completely lost and desperate. I forget to listen. What’s worse I sometimes I don’t just forget, I ignore.
Unlike the sunflower, I am not destined to get a stiff-neck. I can choose to remain flexible, to continue to focus on the movement of the Son in my life each day. The sunflowers that I love remind me to keep facing the Son. They remind me that I need Him all day long.
In my office sunflowers surround me. I have paintings, drawings, pillows, silk flowers, seed packets, a lamp, and a picture frame. I get to work in my own sunflower field each day. Each day I am reminded to stand up and be firm for God. I am reminded to keep facing Him all through the day. And I reminded to listen to Him and stay teachable. I do not want to grow up and grow stiff-necked. I want to be pliable in the hands of the Potter. I want to be a reflection of His goodness and glory.
Sunflowers are examples to me of the beauty of keeping my eyes on the one and only Son of God. Sunflower fields are beautiful with their heads facing the sun in a kind of worship. The sunflowers need the sun. I need the Son too. It is my goal to face the Son each day and reflect His glory.