Much like a tiny bee...

I stopped for a moment to consider the bees gently gliding from one flower to the other around my garden, only to notice something I really never considered before - bees do more than pollinate the flowers and make honey from their pollen. They spend a great deal of time moving over the flower's parts, all the while doing what most of us don't consider very closely - leaving the flower cleaner than when they found it! These tiny creatures are kind of like God's 'sanitary engineers' in the flower world. They move about, attracting the tiny particles of pollen to their wee legs and then fly off, having "cleaned up" the flower of this residue of pollen that gathered at the base of the flower's bloom. Almost imperceptibly, they move the next, mingling just enough of the last flower with this one or that, until they are finished with their "clean up" work. Then they return to the hive, to drop off the gathered treasures of their day. Most of the time, we never realize they are there, but how blessed we are to have them hard at work in our gardens..

How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?  Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. 

(Psalm 19:12-13 NLT)

Much like the bees buzzing in my garden, there is often an unnoticed "interloper" in our lives at work "cleansing us" and leaving us cleaner through the work it performs. The interloper? The Word of God! While we may not consider this "silent power" of the Word of God, let's for a moment begin to realize just how "unnoticed" the presence of God's Word is within us most of the time. It enters into us, quietly and sometimes just barely perceptible to our senses. It doesn't scuttle our insides, or shake us into submission. Yet, in retrospect, as we stop just long enough to consider the work it has been doing, we see it has left us cleaner without really damaging any of the beauty of the "blossom" God's grace has produced! In fact, it leaves us more beautiful and sparkling with the radiance of his presence!

God's Word doesn't have to slap us up side the head to get "at" what is within us. It most often gently glides in as an unnoticed interloper - yet with a purpose and a provision. Much like the tiny bee who gently glides into the inner core of the blossom, bringing with it the tiny nougats of "sweet nectar" God would want to place deep within that which is blooming within us, the Word of God brings the unnoticed blessing of that which produces rich fruit from that blossom of God's grace. Then in equally unnoticed attentive detail, it gently removes that which has no place any longer in our lives. God's work within isn't always noticed until the fruit is seen much later, yet it was because of the gentle "interloper" that we see this development of God's grace! This is the purpose and provision of the Word.

While God's Word is more powerful than a double-edged sword, capable of dividing between soul and spirit, and bringing exposure of inner thoughts and desires, it oftentimes comes in the gentlest manner and can often be imperceptible until we see what has been produced by its presence! Just sayin!