BUTTERFLIES AND BEES AND THE BOTANIST
H. P. Barker was a master of illustrations. One day he described himself looking out a window and watching a garden full of plants and flowers. And he said I saw three things in the garden.
First, I saw a butterfly. The butterfly was beautiful and it would alight on a flower and then it would flutter to another flower and then it would flutter to another flower and only for a second or two would it sit and it would move on and it would touch as many lovely blossoms as it could but derived absolutely no benefit from it.
Then, he said, I watched a little longer out my window and there came a botanist. And the botanist had a big notebook under his arm and a great big magnifying glass. And the botanist would lean over a certain flower and he would look for a long time and then he would write notes in his notebook. He was there for hours writing notes, closed them, stuck them under his arm, tucked his magnifying glass in his pocket and walked away.
And then be said the third thing I noticed was a bee, just a little bee. But the bee would light on a flower and it would sink down deep into the flower and it would extract all the pollen that it could carry. It went in empty every time and came out full.
And H. P. Barker said. So it is with people who approach the Bible.
There are those who just flutter from lovely sermon to lovely sermon, from class to class, fluttering here, fluttering there, bringing nothing and gaining nothing but a nice feeling.
Then there are the spiritual botanists who take copious notes who are trying to make sure that all the vowel pointings are correct but they don’t have the capacity to draw anything out of the flowers, its pure academics.
Then there are the spiritual bees who draw out of every precious flower all that is there to make the honey that makes them so blessed to those around them.
Which are you? You can come to Church and be a butterfly, you can flit from class to class, Bible study to Bible study, seminar to seminar, book to book, flipping your little pretty wings, never changing.
Or you can be a botanist with enough notebooks to sink a small battleship.
Or you can be a bee coming in empty and going out full and turning it into the honey that makes life sweet. Which are you? The sword is there, it’s available. Are you using it?
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