I have a rose bush in a pot outside the front door of my house. Through most of the summer I have kept it watered. But I neglected it a little in July. And it began to turn brown.

“Oh, no!” I thought. “I’ve been keeping it thriving through some very hot weather – and now this.” So I resumed my watering and continued to watch the rose bush become browner and browner: both leaves and branches. “Rats,” I said to myself.

Technically, the rose bush is not mine but my daughter’s. It was pretty when it was blooming. But obviously now it was dead. I don’t know if I over-watered, under-watered or some unknown pest secured it’s demise. I thought about throwing it out and replacing it with a nice new plant; this seemed like an especially good idea, since my daughter was out-of-town for the week. A fresh, blooming rose bush would make a welcome homecoming for her at the end of the week. But I didn’t get around to replacing the plant.

Then I noticed something very peculiar. On this brown-stick-of-a-plant, at the tips of the denuded branches, it looked like small green leaves were beginning to grow. “It couldn’t be,” I thought. “That plant is DEAD!”

But it was happening. A whole new cycle of growth was appearing. This was startling and very wonderful to me. Why was it so wonderful? Because it was a parable to me. There are times when my life seems every bit as dead and unrevivable as that dead rose appeared. And yet it revived. There was life in it yet.

God’s word, the Bible says, “Judge nothing before the time.” God is at work in my life. He is. My sensibilities may only discern deadness and dearth within myself. But that is not the whole story. My little rose bush parable gave me hope. And caused me to wonder at God’s goodness in my life.

God’s prophet, Habakkuk, learned to live in the hope of “yet” while living in the circumstances of “although”:

“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

I have a rose bush in a pot outside the front door of my house. And it’s beginning to green up.