Lessons From the Canna Lilies
Canna lilies are taller; calla lilies are shorter. Both produce incredible blossoms that today are here and tomorrow are cast upon the compost pile.
In fact, in our subtropical neighborhood of San Carlos, California, about 10 miles east of downtown San Diego, one home's canna lilies produced—multiplied—so prodigiously that the owners had to uproot several feet of productive rhizomes just so their garden wouldn't be all cannas.
They placed them on the parkway across the street at an entrance to a hiking trail where anyone could see them and wrote a sign that said, "Help yourself" or "Free," I forget which.
I saw them while walking the dog and after getting home, I drove back and picked up the ones that were left.
We planted them last winter next to a fence that we wanted to cover, and this spring we watched them stretch for the sky, turn green, bud, blossom and entirely fill our faces with red-flecked bright yellow flowers and a few "hazard" orange blooms.
They gave away those roots—how very generous, I thought.
Then I had another thought: God designed those magnificent colors in filigreed petals to—to do what?
They didn't evolve for any practical purpose. They didn't evolve at all. They were created to show and establish, beyond any human doubt, that God creates beautifully and shares that creation with us!
My neighbor was generous, but God is much more abundantly generous! Everything good that we can marvel at and enjoy comes from God—with love.
Let's thank and acknowledge Him.
Course Content
Skip Miller
William (Skip) Miller grew up with a Roman Catholic upbringing, with Catechism classes in grammar school and Jesuit training in high school. These prepared Skip academically for life. But it was enjoying Reader’s Digest in the 1950s—encouraged by his mother—that set the tone for what life was all about. God’s Word—the Bible—is helping him continue that mission.
After a stint in the USAF as a Military Public Health Technician he moved from LA to San Diego to complete college. At San Diego State he began teaching and retired from San Diego City Schools in 2003. While at college he met his future wife, Suzanne, and they attended the World Tomorrow lectures in 1971.
Both like to read widely, write their opinions and study God’s Word. In addition, they have been blessed with two children (10 years apart, Lily and William) who are also accepting the challenge of true Christianity in Satan’s world. They have been blessed with good health—a big help in the job of grandparenting. The whole family, present and future, enjoys camping and fishing for trout in the High Sierras, and after 52 years God still allows Skip to surf once or twice a week.
