The Complacent Rose

For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster

Proverbs 1:32-33

When someone gives you a bouquet of beautiful roses, what do you do with them? You will probably go home, find a vase and fill it with water and plant food; you will then arrange the roses just right in the vase and find the perfect spot to place your flowers on display for everyone to see. The roses look beautiful. Then, many times, after having perfectly set them out, we leave them there. Once they die, or begin to show signs of wilting, we throw them out. 

Complacency, as defined by dictionary.com, is "a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation, condition, etc."

We may not have meant to let the roses start wilting on the counter, but becoming complacent with their state of perfection and not tending to them led to their death. 

Likewise, when we plant flowers in a garden, and they start blossoming beautifully, do we stop tending to them just because they are "oh-so-perfect"? No, of course not! If we do, it will only be a matter of time before they start to wilt and die. In the same way that not tending to the roses on the counter or the flowers in the garden will lead to a plant-sized problem, not tending to our spiritual lives will lead to an eternity-sized problem. We absolutely cannot become complacent.

When life is perfect, we tend to forget God. We forget to tend to our hearts. We neglect tending to our spiritual lives. We become complacent. However, when we enter bad times in our lives and start wilting, we begin to draw near to God, begging for him to rescue us and pour water over our lives and souls. Then when everything gets set on the counter of our lives just "oh-so-perfect," again, we turn away from God, only to fall into the same old sinful pattern of complacency, "for the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them."

Others of us live in a different kind of sinful pattern. There are many of us that instead of drawing away from God by becoming complacent in the "perfection" of our lives, draw away from God by focusing too much on the bad. When life seems to be going great, we start feeling a "dread of disaster," just waiting for something bad to happen. We are constantly watching our lives, focusing so much on what challenge will rear its ugly head in our rose-patch next, that we miss what God is doing in our lives in that moment. This can only be combated with wisdom- the "me" in verse 33. This wisdom is established in the fear of the Lord. "whoever listens to me [wisdom] will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster."

Both patterns are very dangerous, and should be fixed immediately. Don't fear the future in such a way that you miss the beauty God is blossoming in your life in the present moment! And don't get so caught up in the "perfection" of your life that you forget the Gardener, the all-powerful God, who has allowed your rose-patch to blossom!!