Day 6 - The Bonsai Tree and Leaving the Nest

One of the greatest fears for people is the fear of the unknown. But why is the unknown such a scary place to enter into?

Think back over your life. Every friend you have ever had, was once a stranger. You dared to step outside of your comfort zone and reach out a hand of friendship to them. If you had never dared to step into the unknown, you might never have met your boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, husband or wife. They were a gift that God had for you and he could only share that gift with you because you dared to leave behind the known for the unknown.

Think about everything you have ever learnt through books or magazines or from the Internet. A world of incredible discoveries open to you, all because you dared to leave the place you were standing in, in order to step onto a new piece of soil or earth.

One can only travel if one dares, each and every day, to put one foot in front of the other, onto the new soil of endless possibilities. To do the same thing day after day is not to travel and not really to live. In order to discover who you are and who you have been created to be, you must dare to step into the unknown. If you remain in the same place you will begin to take root there and as the years pass, it will become harder and harder to leave behind this place of certainty but sterility and stagnation, to find these new parts of yourself.

Within you lie undiscovered lands. Others have sometimes made us feel of little or no worth and we have come to believe them. But when did God ever start making anything of no worth? If you ever start to believe that about yourself, wander through a garden and take time to delight in the intricacy, beauty and brilliance of a simple daisy. The one who created nature created you. He takes as much care creating a flower that might never be seen or appreciated by mankind as he does in those that many will see. He doesn’t judge it’s worth by how many “likes” they get on their Facebook page. He likes them. He delights in them. Surely, that is all they should care about, that the King of the Universe delights in them.

He delights in who they are today but he can also see who they could be tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. He sees them like those flowers. He knows that for many years, no one but him can see anything of who they were truly created to be, because their roots are hidden beneath the soil. However, he sees the fully formed specimen, full of colour with a sweet scent that others will delight in looking upon and smelling.

Sadly, too many choose to become bonsai trees. They never really allow themselves to grow into all they might be, because they clip away at themselves, keeping themselves small and contained. Many will be happy being a bonsai tree. But God will always feel their loss. For he knows that one day they will be shown that in fact they had been created to be a huge oak tree that would be able to shelter many in their branches and provide shade to those needing a place from the heat of the day or the rains. He is sad because he knows they will be sad. He loves them the same. He cannot love them any more or less. However, he knows that they will feel the loss of never growing into all they might have become.

Therefore, he wants to encourage them to believe in their worth, for he has made them to offer the world and life what no one anywhere else in the world can, both past and present. He knows that in order for that to happen, he must be like a mother bird, prising her young out of the nest in order to be able to fly. That moment must be terrifying for both the baby bird and her mother. The mother knows that her fledgling has been made to fly and that if she never learns how to, then she will have a more contained, smaller life than the baby birds who find the courage to leave the nest and fly. The mother bird is not being cruel by nudging the baby out of the nest. She is being a faithful mother, wanting the very, very best for her offspring. She knows they will scream and shout and plead with her, “mother, please don’t do this, it's cruel”. But she knows that once they feel the pleasure of the wind beneath their wings, they will never look back with an ounce of regret.

That is how we are to see these times; God as the mother bird who is nudging us out of our nests of safety, sameness and certainty and willing us to know the pleasure of who he has created us to be.

What is your greatest fear about the Unknown?

What are the things that are holding you back from leaving your known life, the nest? What keeps you stuck here?

In what area of your life do you feel God as your mother bird, encouraging you to leave the old nest behind to discover the new he has for you?

What are you going to do about it?