Something personal.
We have a plant. Actually two.
Queen of the Night Cactus. Here’s a LINK to read about this special plant — amazing!
One of the two plants bloomed this year!
What is so special about that?
Well, the Queen of the Night Cactus, only blooms at night, and only ONCE does each bloom open; it also closes by morning – not to open again.
Once a bloom develops on the cactus and that bloom begins to turn upward, you must keep watch.
Every night you must check to see if the bloom has opened.
Perhaps this reminds you of a passage of Scripture.
It does me.
The Parable of the Ten Virgins. Matthew 25:1-13.
I hope you will read it.
5 Now while the groom was delaying, they all became drowsy and began to sleep. 6 But at midnight there finally was a shout: ‘Behold, the groom! Come out to meet him.’
11 Yet later, the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.’ 12 But he answered, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you.’ 13 Be on the alert then, because you do not know the day nor the hour.
source
More of our story and perhaps you will see the parallel of the parable.
No upturn yet.
Still, we watched. A few days passed and then the upturn began – sorry I don’t have a picture of ours but the link above will show you how it looks when it begins to upturn.
Our daily night watch began. With a flashlight in hand, we stepped onto the back porch and peered into the darkness with the flashlight directed toward the Queen.
Nope. No opening.
On one particular night we looked early, 8:00 ish I think it was.
No opening.
We chose to retire early that night, read Scripture, talked a bit, and we were just about to turn out the light. It was 10:00 ish.
Promptings.
You may think what you like but I am convinced Holy Spirit nudged me to go look. Again. And again He nudged.
We have to go I said.
We did.
Look what we would have missed had we ignored the promptings.
We would have missed the most beautiful, glorious flower I have ever seen — in our own backyard even!
And you know what I believe? Our Father GOD didn’t want us to miss it. He didn’t want us to miss that glorious beauty He prepared for us.
He doesn’t want us to miss the beauty of His Heaven either. None of us. Not one of us does He not want to come, repent, receive and believe.
All it took was obedience to the call, the promptings of GOD.
That’s all it takes to see the glory of GOD.
What have you missed because you have ignored the promptings of GOD?
The blooms were closed by morning and they opened not again.