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For being a cold country that is pretty void of sunlight half the year, Scotland has an inordinate amount of yellow flowers growing wild. I think it's a comedic stroke of irony from God. And to add to it, gorse, the yellow-blossoming bush all over the country, smells like coconut! Daffodils are also widespread, and all the yellow is a welcome abundance of brightness as the winter recedes.
I was recently reading Zechariah 4's vision of the lampstand. It is described to be in between two olive trees, with a bowl and 7 lamps, each with 7 spouts. The CSB Study Bible comments, "the lampstand described here is surrealistic, with an inexplicable arrangement of containers of oil . . . perhaps signifying an abundance of oil."
Evidently, Zechariah thinks it's a bit strange, too, because twice he asks the angel speaking to him what it is he's seeing. The answer is in verses 6-7: "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength or by might, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord of Armies. 'What are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain. And he will bring out the capstone accompanied by shouts of: Grace, grace to it!’”
From 1 Samuel 16:13, we know oil was a symbol of God's Spirit. So the vision seems to signify an abundance of oil that will reflect the abundance of the Spirit, doing an impossible work - not in Zerubbabel's strength or might - but by God's power.
Later that evening, I walked down the canal and as I looked back at the scheme, with God's big sky above it, I couldn't help but think about him opening the heavens and pouring out his Spirit over this community. We are desperate for him to do it. We are desperate for his power to crush "the god of this world [who] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Cor 4:4). We are desperate for him to turn the mountain of unbelief in the Merkinch and South Kessock into a plain of repentance, faith, and surrender to Jesus as Lord and Savior. So that is my prayer - that he would, indeed, pour out his Spirit in abundance, an abundance like the yellow flowers of Scotland, popping up on every patch of green.
Would you please pray that with me? Perhaps every time you see a yellow flower?
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