Matthew 6: 28 – 30 NKJV “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”
I took this photo of the lilies above this past weekend. Beautiful, aren’t they? Recently, I commented on a fellow blogger’s iris photo, and I said that a fashion designer could take inspiration from it. At the time, I wasn’t really thinking about the passage in Matthew cited above, but it fits perfectly.
Here is an iris I photographed at the Presby Memorial Iris Gardens.
Look at this iris. There does seem to be a parallel between it and women’s gowns, doesn’t there? It’s diaphanous, soft and ruffly. It made me think designers could take inspiration from flowers.
It made me wonder, “Has a fashion designer been inspired by the shapes and textures of flowers?” I looked up “gowns inspired by flowers” on Google, and here is some of what I found.
I also found some fashion illustrations from Grace Ciao, a fashion illustrator from Singapore, where she incorporates actual flower petals into her illustrations.
You can see how man can be inspired by God’s design in nature. God tells us in this passage that even (King) Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as well as one of these flowers of the field — which are only temporary and fade. God cares for us more than He does for the flowers, so why do we worry?
Why do we worry? For me, I think I feel a sense of responsibility for myself. Where my responsibility ends and where God’s provision begins can feel a little confusing. We do what we can, but there are circumstances (like world-wide pandemics) that aren’t really under our control.
I had been planning on this post for a while, but through some quirk of timing — God’s timing? — for the first time in a long while, I did some major clothes shopping this past weekend. I had a shortage of certain summer clothes. I had very few summer dresses or shorts that fit right. A little doggy ate up my last pair of summer sandals (true story!) I made do with what I had for a while, but it worked out that God provided, and I felt I was able to get several new things.
God does expect us to take certain actions in faith, but then we can expect God to do what we can’t do for ourselves.