The Flower and The Fence

The flower and the fence

Why Israelites are so lucky to be selected by God, and their religion was chosen to be the foundation of the Christianity.

Jesus might have clearly told the reason through his teaching: "It is the sick that need a doctor."

I guess in that sense Israelites aren't special as all are sinners but one. But Israelites are selected special in that they have been kept the complete record of their sins with honest. Washing off their sins are more difficult. God wanted to show his mercy and fogiveness to everyone, even the most sinful ones.

Take the follwing parable:

In the late winter, when the wind is still freezing cold, but the spring has been already on her way. The smart gardener would sow the seed of most beautiful flower under the fence of his front yard.

Although the fence is cold and lifeless, it collects sunshine and helps the seed fight and survive the cold weather and late frost during the ealy spring.

Gradually, the seed germinate and start to grow. Inch by inch it grows. At the beginning, it still need the support of the fence as it is not strong enough. Finally, its beauty overshadow the fence and becomes greatest plant that dominate the fence which used to dominate.

Similarly, it might happen to many believers of our Christian church. Many of us began our journey of Christianity with a motivation not so of christian, sometimes even from selfishness. But the seed of holly spirit was sowed by Jesus under the fence of exactly that selfishness. As time goes, the sunshine and water comes to us as Jesus' Gospel teaching. Finally, the flower of holly spirit with solid faith and great love would finally dominate our minds.

(Nowadays, some churches need people to pass some kind of test or something alike to be baptized. Go and read the gospel again and compare, who give you the right to set that bar?!!!)

During this process, some time we need to remove our fence of selfishness or even evil thinking from our mind if it's harmful to the flower. More often we can just leave it there and let the holly spirit grow over it, but since our holly spirit are taking the control it won't do any harm. The selfishness could not cause damage but would only make our life more colorful.

From a friend of another church in Toronto (Gospel hall in Eglinton), I heard a very good story. Don was an elder member of a church, one day they ran across a lady and her daughter in front of their church. After a brief discussion, he invited them to visit their church. And the lady responded in a surprising way: "I will goto your church only if you could offer me a job."

But they were not surprised, they happened to have some part time work to do in the church, so they actually offered her a job. And the lady and her daughter were latter baptized one year after. (Actually the request might be quite understandable after you knew how tough the life sometimes)


Reminding me about a quote from buddhism, "if you see a buddha, kill him!". Actually this might be something worth deeper thinking. Here the word "kill" might not mean physically killing the buddha, but to fight with him. Actually fighting with the buddha is better than leave the buddha alone. As leaving the buddha alone won't do anything good for you. But trying to kill him (fight with him) will teach yourself some buddhism. With the effort to fight with it as a start point, you will really start to understand the truth, and eventually be saved. To be honest, killing a buddha is quite a evil idea at the first place from any point of view.


Christian is exactly such a buddha, after we saw Christian, before we fully understand it, our instinct tell us to deny it at first place. But the effort to deny it might be the first step of our chrisitian life. As this selfdefense effort builds a fence for Jesus to sow the seed of Holly spirit in our mind.

Many many things just work like that. Some other good things could also come out in a similar way. Love might come from selfishness. Friendship might start with taking advantage of other people. Of course, I am not suggesting to do wrong things knowingly and purposely and expect good thing comes after.




Follow the real heart, don't pretend! If your heart tells to deny Christian, just do it and fight. That might be a good start point. But don't let your mind die and stop working. (Reminds me a quote for Jesus: anyone speak against Jesus Christ would be forgiven, but any one speak against Holly Spirit will not be forgiven.)

If we take another stand point, selfishness might be the cause of sin or even evil, but if we have love as steering wheel and holy spirit as the driver. Sometimes they can be utilized as a powerful engine and do work for us. The key is we should always keep the holy spirit at the driver seat.

Selfishness is like a wild beast in our mind. But if we use love as harness, and let holly spirit to rein it, this wild beast won't cause any damage. Its power could do some work for us. As more often than not, selfishness could generate more driving power of motivation to do work, that just the nature of our mind. The trick is we need to rein it.

Selfishness is like a fence, cold and lifeless. But if sow the seed of holly spirit under it and let it grow in the sunshine of Gospel teaching. The flower of love will blosom and lead us into beautiful spring. If we always appreciate holly spirit, the fence not only won't damage the flower, but help it be more beautiful and strong.

God know this trick very well, that's why he designed the world this way, the world of richness, combined with love and selfishness.


Jewish teaching is the fence, and under the fence, God sowed the seed of Gospel underneath it. After two thousand years, bit by bit, up and down, chrisitianity grew out as a beautiful flower, it blosom beautifully and overshadowed the fence. They have transformed our world of violence into the peaceful spring, that's the kingdom of God.

Going back to the question from beginning, are the Israelites really selected as a only nation to be treated specially. Observe the fact that Taoism and Buddhism all came in at around 2500 years ago, they both were caring similar birth mark of love, compassion, forgiving and considerative of others. The answer might not be that simple.

But there are something special with Christianity, because the Israelites' special loyalty to their old (sinful) religion and loveless laws, it cost much more for God to sow the seed. The strugle of Christianity establishment was by far the most painful. The result is that the fruit from that branch is also the most beautiful and rich in content.