Daily Devotion From Pastor Chris

Some four hundred and seventy years ago, in 1554 an ambassador to the Sultan of Turkey brought the first tulip bulbs and seeds to Vienna as a gift from the Ottoman Empire.  From Vienna they spread to Augsburg, Antwerp and Amsterdam, and when a botanist discovered the flowers could tolerate the harsher conditions of areas like the Netherlands and Belgium, the tulip began to grow in popularity.

     With its intense petal color, the tulip was unlike any other flower in Europe at that time.  It became a coveted luxury item, and growers began developing different varieties from single-hued flowers (red, yellow or white) to flowers with white or yellow streaks on a red, pink or purple background.  The effect could be spectacular. 

     It takes 7-12 years for a tulip seed to form a flowering bulb.  When the flower appears the original bulb disappears.  In its place, a clone bulb forms along with several buds.  It is those buds that hold the key to passing on the distinctive effects from one generation to the next, but they have to be carefully cultivated to actually become bulbs of their own.  For those growers four hundred years ago, then, cultivating the most appealing varieties took years of focused effort.

     By 1636, the tulip bulb became the fourth leading export product of the Netherlands, after gin, herrings, and cheese, and speculation in tulip futures skyrocketed.  At the height, a single bulb could go for ten times the annual income of a skilled craftsperson.  Fortunes were made and lost, and ultimately the whole market collapsed in February of 1637 ending an era that in retrospect was called “tulip mania.”

     We love variety.  There is something about it that pleases the eye.  People don’t go to Colorado to see the fall colors.  Aspen turning gold is pretty, but it doesn’t compare with the kind of rich, varied color one finds in New England.

     So think about this: when God was bringing creation into being God could easily have settled on just one color or one kind of flower.  Instead, there are an estimated 300,000 known species of flower in the world today with maybe as many as six times that figure that have not yet been identified.  What a God!  And what love God must have for us to gift us with such riches!
 

“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”
(Gen. 1:31)

- Pastor Chris