We often seem to understand and see things more clearly when seen in picture or parable form. A few years ago, I saw an award-winning short film on TV which graphically illustrated to me something we often do, not only to each other, but also see in Christianity and "ought not to be". We recently found the film on YouTube and have included it here:

This world is like this desert where we may see very little genuine Life. I saw through this picture how I had not only experienced having things stomped on and spat out, but how I myself had either stomped on, torn out by the roots, chewed and spat out or otherwise mis-treated Life which others had planted. Our words - especially critical and negative words - can bring death.

Just because somebody else's plant or growth may not look like mine, is no reason to destroy it. It might be a cactus instead of a flower, or a tree instead of a rosebush - but providing it is Life and that the Seed planted IS Christ, the form matters very little! There is incredible diversity in Life! Of course there are many artificial plants out there too. They have the name of being a plant, they may look like they have Life, but they are not real, they are not living. There are also plants which have been tampered with and man has changed their natural form creating a hybrid to serve his own needs and desires. However, I am not referring to those who pretend to be something they are not or who "help" by creating something other and "bigger and better" than God wants. True, genuine Life comes from only One and I am talking about our brothers and sisters who do know Christ and who plant something which does originate from Him and His Life.

We all need to respect that Life and not only appreciate it, but also defend it from being stomped on, torn out by the roots, eaten and spat out etc. I particularly liked the ending of the film because in the end it wasn't an individual thing but a corporate thing, brought about by their combined tears and suffering together. The plants weren't owned by each of them because they had individually planted and watered the seed, instead the Life and growth was a result of the downpour from their tears: "It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow." (1 Cor. 3:7).

"There is nothing that is precious to the Lord, and which He would make the property of His people, but there will be suffering for it. It will only become their property - in that sense - as they suffer for it, and then woe betide who criticizes that! If you are detached from a thing, if you are detached from a testimony, from a work of God, you can do all the criticizing you like. You have no inward heart-relationship to it, and so you pass your judgments upon it. But if you are in it and you have suffered, if it has been a costly thing where you are concerned, then you are seeing more than all the failings, more than all those faults. The people who can criticize like that and judge and point out faults are the people who have not suffered.

"On the other side, we may know all the terms, all the phraseology, all the doctrine, all the truth, and it may be just objective, something we have heard; we have lived in the midst of it, it is familiar to us. But what the Lord will do if that is to become ours is to take us into travail over the matter. He will relate that thing to our hearts in a deep, inward way, so that none of us will be able to say, 'I know all about that, I have heard all about that, I could tell you all that you could tell me about that'. The Lord would so work in a costly, deep and painful way in relation to that, to make it ours through travail, that we are brought into a new position. We are not spectators, looking on, criticizing; we are on the inside, looking out, defending. We are jealous over it. Suffering is a great purifying thing. It destroys selfishness. It destroys that self-interest that is the cause of so much of the trouble. It makes us in a disinterested way jealous for what is of God. Yes, suffering purifies, and suffering makes this deep, inward link.

"It gives an extra feature to things. That extra feature where we cannot just be occupied with faults and be people of a criticizing attitude, the extra feature with a love which covers a multitude of sins. We have suffered together. When we suffer together, what a lot we get over! We have gone through it together, perhaps through the years. We have been in the fire together, and there is a love, there is a jealousy which, let people say what they will about the other persons, simply rises up in us because we have suffered."
(T. Austin-Sparks http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/002012.html )

Lord, return our prisoners again, as you bring streams to the desert.
Those who cry as they plant crops will sing at harvest time.
Those who cry as they carry out the seeds will return singing and carrying bundles of grain.
For the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places.
And He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song!
Psalm 126:4-6, Isaiah 51:3