In early March, a woman named Caelie Wilkes made a post that went viral. She wanted to talk about her beloved succulent house plant. She did not at all have a green thumb. She had killed a variety of plants in the past. But this time, when Wilkes received this plant as a gift, she was determined that things would be different. She did a little research, looking up how to properly care for it. She watered it regularly. When others tried to help, she became protective, fearing they would overwater it. It seemed to pay off; the plant always looked amazing. Then in late February, she decided it was time to repot it, and that’s when she made the discovery that has led to international attention. The plant was plastic! There were no roots below the surface-only styrofoam.            I love this story because I can relate to struggling with plants. But as this pandemic has turned our lives upside down, I’ve grown to love the story even more because it seems to me to be an apt metaphor for what many of us have discovered (or at least would discover if we bother to look and reflect a little bit). We have all been watering plastic plants for too long! We have been caring for, fussing over things that just aren’t real. There are places, pursuits, priorities, perhaps a lot of them, that aren’t as important or life giving as we have made them out to be. Times of difficulty are great opportunities to reassess what is really important. What might God be trying to show you? How might God be trying to teach you, train you, change you when it comes to what’s important, what’s real, what’s lasting? Let God open your eyes and open your ears so that you know that what you are caring for and cultivating is real. Stop watering plastic plants!

To watch the lesson, click here.