1-29-21
The Blooming Onion
I have recently been opening up and expressing some thoughts
about going through a difficult season.
After church last night, in casual conversation I opened up a little
more and asked if I would be able to seek some help at some point for
processing or helping me deal with it.
We stopped right there and in prayer through the power of the Holy
Spirit just left him to deal with it. After
experiencing some deliverance, there was such a release and lightweight feeling
to all that I had been carrying. I had
finally felt an undeniable peace about all things; about myself.
I came home exhausted but just consumed by peace. I could hardly sleep but in the process of
the insomnia God was speaking to my heart.
One of the things he showed me and talked to me about was a blooming
onion. Walk with me through this process
as we uncover what he shared with me about life and freedom through
discipleship and deliverance.
Onions come from the ground and dirt. The longer they remain in the dirt and mud,
the bigger they grow. We are much like
onions. We end up in the dirt and mud of
life through choices of our own, or not of our own. This can happen through a variety of means we
don’t need to get into now. The longer
we stay there the bigger and more layers our onion develops.
One day, God finds a way for our onion to be dug up and
uncovered. He asks us to let him wash
the dirt off our life. His washing of
our life is through the shedding of his blood.
Then he asks us to shed that outer dry protective layer of the onion
through his water baptism. Then the next
layer is revealed with a little bit of a thicker brown that seems to be a
little tougher skin but still somewhat fragile.
This happens through the baptism of the Holy Spirit and his indwelling
in us for the revelation needed for what he will walk and carry us through. Then lastly comes a much tougher layer of the
onion that needs to be peeled away before the worth of the onion is left
exposed. This process is through deliverance. It is a necessary step to shed that tough layered
protective skin off that holds those many things that grew the many layers of
our onion of life. It is the door that
demonic spirits settled in through to strengthen the burning juices of the
onion that can bring us to tears. He
simply is saying let me get things out of the way so that we can work layer by
layer through the raw vulnerable onion.
Let me shed these things I am showing you. I want to show you how the pungency of your
onion become something sweet and desired.
After showing me these necessary steps, my thoughts
questioned my struggles at times and this realization that I may or may not
find other thicker layers growing within.
Why do I find myself struggling so much at times? Why do new things get brought to the
surface? I was reminded again, the
symbolic meaning of onions having layers and God will uncover those different
layers. We may even have more than onion
in our garden that needs dug up and uncovered.
It is in these whole raw pungent onions being exposed through
watery eyes and even tears he is revealing what these layers represent that he
wants to cut and peel away at. We may
even find ourselves in a more vulnerable hurting place as he picks up his knife
and begins to cut and carve our onion through the core, but still leaving us
intact for a different purpose. Those
cuts, and pungent aromas of tear-filled aromatic juices that sting our eyes and
our soul and we beg for his surgical knife not to hurt and sting so bad. He quietly says but I have great plans for
what I am doing, and my hand and eyes are in this. He is making us into a blooming onion.
He takes us so far in this painful process. He lets us rest and then bathes and clothes
us with his love. He knows the next
steps needed will be even harder, because of the heat we will need to
face. Much like the onion. It gets carved and left to rest while the
batter is prepared. It then gets dipped
and bathed in the batter before facing the hot oil or oven.
I was then reminded of the song, “There is another in the
fire”. He never leaves when we are
placed in the fire. He is in there and
watching us. He is using the fire to
refine and sweeten us in his love. He is
removing the pungency from our lives. He
lets us go in the fire to soften our hearts for his heart.
When the onion is done cooking it is removed and left to
rest while served with a dipping sauce.
He presents us as a sweet blooming onion to continue to be dipped in
another taste of his love but this time we are served to others through the
gifts and sweetness he has given through the petals of understanding, love, and the compassion that have come about from our life.
A raw onion, by itself, may not be the most appealing and may
seem a bit repulsive. If we let him peel
and work through those layers through pain and tears and hard raw moments of
exposure, he will be able to turn our onion from raw and pungent to delightfully
sweet and tasty of his goodness.
