Grow Where You Are Planted

Each person should live as a believer

in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them,

just as God has called them.

1 Corinthians 7:17a (NIV)

I see all kinds of toadstools, mushrooms, fungi, etc., on my hikes. They come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, colors and even odors! Some are as nasty smelling as you can imagine. Well, maybe you cannot imagine. 😊

I remember on one hike I came into an area with loads of these great big rust colored toadstools. They smelled so bad I pulled my nasty, but less nasty, smelling shirt over my nose and started booking through the area! They were absolutely awful!!

Whatever their other God designed purpose is, they stink FABULOUSLY! Hey, whatever God gives you and wherever you are, “Let it shine!” Right? 😊

On a hike in Virginia, I came across a collage of miniature toadstools and mosses that God tucked back inside the end of a large, decomposing cut off log. It was absolutely breathtaking. While I was taking pictures of it another guy stopped and started taking pictures too!

Wherever I see these creations of God, I find them all interesting, and I see them all along the trail. I must have hundreds of pictures of them.

They grow seemingly everywhere, on, in, under and around anything.

It is amazing how such a small, simple, random thing, can impact your day and life. How they can cause me to get down in the dirt, and even mud, on my knees with a heavy pack on my back. How they can cause me to strain under the weight of the pack while I take picture after picture trying to collect the perfect image to remember it by. How they can cause me at times to look for them in my collections of pictures instead of spectacular and vast vistas! How they can cause me to remember the time and circumstances when I took the picture.

IT’S A TOADSTOOL FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!

It may be just a toadstool, but by growing so humbly and obediently where God plants it, God blesses the world through it for His glory.

That is what God wants to do through us as well.

God tells gospel believers in 1 Corinthians 7:17a that, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them.

If you are like me, you do not always appreciate the place geographically or circumstantially that God plants you in. Getting down in the dirt is one thing, getting down in the mud is quite another. ESPECIALLY WHEN IT FEELS LIKE YOU HAVE A HEAVY PACK ON YOUR BACK! ☹

I need to remind myself in these times though, if God can use a mushroom, toadstool, or some fungi to be such a blessing, He certainly can use me if I will let Him.

If we are having a hard time growing where God has planted us, maybe we would do well to think of a simple toadstool growing humbly and obediently in the middle of some dark, damp place in the middle of a rotting log. Ready to “Let itself shine!” for all those whom God would bring across its path. Allowing itself to be the special blessing God intended it to be.

Let us humbly and obediently get on with our assignment that the Lord has called us to. Let us live wherever we are and through whatever circumstances we find our selves in, in such a way that it displays the grace, mercy and power of the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives. Let us ask God to use us to be a special blessing to someone every day, for the rest of our earthly lives.

Let’s face it, we all need a little encouragement each day. If we cannot do it for one another, I guess we had better head for the woods and find us a toadstool who will.😊