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Life Lessons

My Heart, God’s Home…11….The Garden

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     Things settled down and everything seemed to be going smoothly. I was having my daily morning times with the Lord when He opened His word to me and I talked with Him. They were precious times and I wouldn’t have missed them for anything. I had banished all the doubtful things from the study of my mind, and I was feasting on the good and pure things that He delighted in.

  My cupboards were clean and tidy with all the rubbish disposed of to the dump. He was teaching me how to make the best use of my time and to make useful contacts with others. Everything was neat and tidy, with my cupboards all clean and I had nothing to be ashamed of, or so I thought.

   One day, the Lord came to me and said with a whimsical smile, “Um, have you looked at the garden lately?” I glanced out the window, and said hastily, “But Lord, You know how busy I’ve been doing Your work, and taking time to be with You each day!”

“Ah,” He said, “But you cannot afford to get slack in anything that belongs to Me. I know I could do this work for you with a single word, but that is not  how I have ordained things. It is up to you to weed and tend this garden, or you will not be able to totally enjoy the beauty I have provided. The plants will be covered in weeds, and the dead heads on the flowers will prevent new growth and continual flowering!”

“Oh”, I said somewhat shamefacedly, “I’m sorry Lord, I’ll get onto it straight away and promise I won’t let it get away from me again!”    I was beginning to realise that serving the Lord is a lifelong daily task! When the shrubs were starting to grow too rampantly, they needed trimming back to keep their shape, and other plants had to be staked to hold them upright. So as I began to weed and trim, the garden started to look cared for…I had always known this, but had been too busy doing other things. The garden became a joy to behold, and those passing by were able to enjoy it too.

The next time the Lord came to see things, He commended me on keeping it looking so good. He wasn’t the only One to notice this either….the neighbours began to say how much they were enjoying the flowers that were being grown, and not only that, but I was able to give away the extra fruit and vegetables. I had more than enough for my own needs. I thanked and praised the Lord for what He was able to do with my life….after all, all that I had He had given me in the first place! It was up to me to use these things for His glory!

Life Lessons

Reaching for the Sky!

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    As I said last week, I’ve been trimming and tying up the young rose cuttings from last year, and imagining a conversation I could have had with one of them. The particular rose in the photo had one long strong branch coming out of the main stem, reaching out to the side. It’s head wasn’t particularly strong looking and certainly wasn’t a good shape. So I picked the strong stalk up and tied it firmly  into an upright position onto the stake.

“Ouch!” exclaimed the rose, “That hurts!”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said, “But this is how I want you to grow. I want you to look up and grow into a taller plant with your head on higher things.”

The rose got a bit sulky at that and muttered, “I wanted to grow my branches out low, down to the ground because that’s how I would be if you weren’t watching me. After all, I AM a carpet rose you know!”

    I looked further along the row and saw a rose that I had trained a few years earlier. It is tall, with a bushy head  looking up to the sky, and is covered with flowers being a thing of beauty and joy to everyone who sees it.

 “Do you see that rose over there?” I asked the one I was dealing with, “That’s how you will look  too in a couple of years time. You will be able to have other flowers growing beneath your branches instead of being a tangled mess lying on the ground with other branches growing all over the place. You are a good strong plant and have great potential if you obey my pruning and staking!”

“I suppose so,” sighed the one I was dealing with, “But it’s not very nice being tied up tight like this. It hurts when you take my little side branches off too!”

“It’ all for your own good, my dear,” I said, “and you will thank me for it one day!”

   This little story has an application that we should all take to heart. It is only as we respond to the tying and staking of the Master Gardener in our life, and lift our heads to look up into His face that we will be able to reach our full potential that He plans for us. Yes, there will be experiences that we could well do without, but if we remember that He always knows what is best and can see the wider plan, we can take it all happily and rest in knowing His love for us.

Random Devotional Thoughts

Cutting Out the Deadwood.

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I’ve been trimming our hedge today, and it reminded me how we have to be trimmed by the Heavenly Gardener also. It’s hard work to do this and to get the hedge back to looking good again….no doubt it also hurts the hedge trees! Certainly trimming us of our bad habits and thoughts takes time and effort on our part and often hurts us in the process. Nor is this a one-off process…the hedge  needs to be done continually, and so it is with us.

Just as the trimming neatens and tidies up the hedge, and makes it good to look at and enhances the general garden appearance, so the trimming that God gives us does the same in our lives….in fact we are told in the Bible that  “No chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised by it. So therefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed (Hebrews 12:11-13 KJV).

Not only does this pruning tidy things up, but in fruit trees, it also helps to the trees to bear fruit. In exactly the same way, we cannot bear fruit for God until we are trimmed up with all the rough branches and dead twigs in our lives cut off. This is truly just dead wood. So much that we get involved in seems good at the time, but in the end it is only dead wood, and has no fruit for the Master Gardener. This is where we have to be alert and cut out spending our time fruitlessly (in every sense of the word!)

John tells us that the only way we can bear fruit for the Lord is to abide in Him; that is, to do His will and ask Him what we should do (John 15:1-6). Unless we do this we cannot abide in Him…..there is no room for Him when our will is taking over. We must bow to His will in all that we do, so we can bear fruit for Him..

Let’s take these thoughts to heart, clean our act up and get going again!