Time to blossom! Who is God calling you to be?

Major Kerry Coke encourages you to bloom into the person God wants you to be.

Romans 12:1 and 2 say: ‘So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him’ (The Message). I say amen to that! Choosing to say yes to God’s call on my life is the best decision I’ve ever made.

Simon Armitage recently released a volume of poetry with the National Trust to promote blossom season, which we’re in now. The book is titled Blossomise and it contains beautiful imagery about nature and becoming.

Let me tell you a true story about the blossomising of someone’s life. A young mother deeply rooted in Jesus was looking to take her everyday, ordinary life and place it before God as an offering. Her young children were in a diverse but also, sadly, self-segregated school. She asked God to blossom his love and grace in her, so that the petals could fall on the other parents.

There were language, religious and cultural barriers to overcome. But petals don’t stay behind walls. They float where the wind takes them. This young mum prayed the Holy Spirit would take the petals where she couldn’t get to yet. In time, those barriers became so covered in petals that the parents no longer viewed them as barriers but as something to talk about.

She invited her new friends into her home. The relationships blossomed and their children became friends too. When they started inviting each other for sleepovers, the teachers noticed. The young mother was brought in to see the head teacher.

She shared what had happened and the head teacher – who was of a different faith – invited them to her home to sample some of her food and culture. The blossom was being walked on the soles of people’s shoes into the most unlikely places!

Some of the parents were also struggling with English, so the blossom fell on the tongues of those who could speak English and they helped each other. A bouquet of grace and love emerged in this group of people who saw the beauty in each other. Some of them worked together with others to create affordable housing for their community.

And it started with that young mother rooted in Jesus.

The thing about blossomising our lives is that when we blossom, other people thrive too. Just like bees and pollen in the natural world, those who encounter a person who has been blossomised can’t help but let it rub off on them.

If you leave a car under a blossom tree, you return to it transformed, covered in petals. When we blossom, we shed our petals of love and grace on the world around us. We see the world transform into what it should be. Amos 5:24 says: ‘I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living’ (New Living Translation). We could say: ‘I want to see blanket blossom coverings of justice, a whirlwind blossom of righteous living.’

How is God asking you to blossomise your life? How is he shaking the branches of your life to show you where the petals fall? Picture what that would look like. Did you see a particular place or people? Who was changed? Who is God asking you to become?

We have a whole orchard of people in this territory with the potential to blossom into something more. I have, and still am, fulfilling God’s call on my life through officership. Whatever you are being called to be – that might be officership or leadership in another form – I encourage you to say yes. Stepping out with God, becoming the person God intended you to be, is the best decision you can make.

• Based on a message shared at Exploring Leadership Day 2024.