In the Garden

There is no perfume so heavenly as a blooming garden on a warm day.

There is a particular garden that always catches my attention when I go out for a ride on my bicycle. I love cycling with the sun and wind in my face, and fire in my muscles! I can hear the birds singing, and I can smell the food that’s being cooked as I pass by houses. There is one house, however, that I love to pass on my rides, because it has one of the most exquisite gardens that I’ve ever seen.

Picture it. A colonial-style home with white columns. There’s a dainty white table and chairs on the lawn. There are oak trees surrounded by spider plants. There are pink and white flowers stretching up from the ground. It’s a picture that you want to breathe in. I usually slow down my pace when I approach this house just to appreciate the beauty of it.

Several weeks ago, a friend and I were walking through my neighborhood, and I purposefully directed our path to go by this house. My friend looked at the house and said, “Wow! You know that’s an old garden. You don’t grow a garden like that overnight.” I smiled, thought about my modest yard, and agreed.

There are a lot of planting/farming/gardening metaphors in the Bible. Throughout history, civilizations were largely agricultural. So, it makes perfect sense that God would use agricultural terminology when speaking to his people. Unfortunately for those of us living in the Western world, we have become more industrial and have lost an understanding of the land. This loss of understanding in physical terms can also affect our understanding in spiritual terms as well.

The psalmist often compared a righteous man to a tree planted by rivers of water. (See Psalm 1, Psalm 52:8, Psalm 92:12-13, Psalm 104:15-17 )

The Song of Solomon uses the garden metaphor to depict a healthy sexual relationship between man and wife. (See Song of Songs 1:16-17 , Song of Songs 2:1-15, Song of Songs 4:11-15; Song of Songs 5:1, Song of Songs 7:7-13)

Matthew 13 is almost wholly comprised of parables about planting and growing to illustrate how we develop faith and apply God’s word to our lives.

The scriptures listed above are just a few of the many scriptures about planting, watering, growing, gleaning, and harvesting that can be found in the Bible. Moses wrote laws about it. David sang Psalms about it. Solomon romanticized it. Jesus applied it practically to our lives.

One day, on yet another bike ride, I was talking to the Lord about my life and was astonished to pass by my favorite house and garden only to see chaos! The owners were outside. Piles of greenery were discarded in heaps. Pots of plants were lined up, fresh from the store and ready to be planted in the ground. The dainty table and chairs were being vigorously re-painted. I felt the Lord speak softly to me: You need to learn more about gardening.

So, I brought a mint plant home after a visit at my parents’ house. I watched as the stress of the move killed most of the leaves. I plucked off the dead leaves, placed the plant in the sun, and watered it. New leaves came in.

Then, I purchased some new plants and began to make a compost for the bottom of my pots. I cut up the stems of an old bouquet and threw them in the pots. I collected dead leaves and put them in the pots. I noticed some dead insects on my porch and decided to throw them into the pots as well. Decaying plants and bugs provide excellent nutrients for the dirt which grows the plants.

Gardening is rather nasty if you think about it.

I started looking at my plant beds, which had been developed prior to my moving into the house. While the plants are prospering, so were the weeds that were sprouting up. I got down on my hands and knees in order to extricate the parasitic undergrowth of weeds. Before I knew it, 2 hours had passed. I was covered in dirt. A trash bag was full of weeds.

Gardening is hard work.

The results of good gardening, however, are beautiful.

One of my favorite verses of the Bible is Song of Songs 4:12, which I want to include here in different versions for context :

“A garden enclosed Is my sister, my spouse, A spring shut up, A fountain sealed.” (KJV)

“Dear lover and friend, you’re a secret garden, a private and pure fountain.” (MSG)

“My darling bride, my private paradise,
fastened to my heart.
A secret spring are you that no one else can have—
my bubbling fountain hidden from public view.
What a perfect partner to me now that I have you.” (TPT)

I love this verse, because I love the imagery of a person as a garden. I love the intimacy of being an “enclosed garden” both physically and spiritually. The relationship between the King and his beloved in Song of Songs is accepted as a template for marriage, much like marriage is biblically understood to be a physical representation of Christ’s relationship with the Church. Just as I reserve my body for my spouse, I reserve my soul for God.

As much as I do love to share parts of my life with people, there are parts of my life that I only feel comfortable sharing with God. The scripture teaches that God discerns the hearts of men (and women, of course). He is the only one who I trust to tend to the garden of my life. When I let God and his word take full effect in my life, I am letting the Master Gardener take control. If I don’t allow God into my life, I won’t be a garden but an overrun wilderness – a desirable place for predators to nest.

Sometimes we pass by someone else’s garden, like I do on my bicycle. We see the blooms and wish that our gardens were as fruitful. For the most part, we do not see the Gardener at work. We don’t see the piles of dirt, the decay, and the rain that worked together for those beautiful plants to grow. So, when we welcome the Lord into our lives, we are surprised when we feel like we’re being buried, when death and heartache are on every side, and storms of life blow over us. We want that lovely, picturesque garden, but we don’t want the tearing, uprooting hand of the Gardener.

Have you felt the Gardener’s hand on your life? Do you feel his painful grasp on the roots of your generational addictions and thought patterns? Those generational sins do not make up your root system – they are the weeds that encircle your roots, and they can be plucked out. Do you sense his touch in the midst of the troubles that have come upon you? Our sufferings are just compost that enriches us where we are planted.

Don’t worry about what the Gardener is doing to you. You can trust that He is working all things for your good. Ultimately, His work is going to ensure that you bloom and flourish!

And there is nothing so beautiful and heavenly as your garden will be if you’ll allow the Gardener to perform his work.

On Dreams and Suffering

Dreams and suffering. We like to think and talk about dreams, for the most part, but suffering is another matter. Suffering is an uncomfortable subject for most of us. Whether we like it or not, we are all faced with suffering at some point in our lives, and we are all given the choice of either letting our suffering drive us to the total denial of our dreams or to deliver us to the entire delight of our God-given destiny.

At my church, I work closely with the youth group. I love those kids and am amazed that I have the privilege to teach them. Often when I look at their bright, hopeful faces, I feel ancient. They seem like soft sandy beaches on a warm Caribbean shore, while I feel like a rocky Mediterranean beach with chilly blue waves crashing against my coast. They have dreams that have not been touched by suffering. My dreams don’t resemble their dreams.

Why do I feel this way? I can’t say that I have suffered greatly. My trauma, by comparison to many, has been minimal. But I have witnessed the suffering of close friends and family that has totally changed my perspective on what it is to live life fully and to love unconditionally. The suffering I’ve witnessed has altered my expectations and my dreams.

When I hear young people talk about the type of homes they want, I think about my friends and family who have lost homes in floods or fire. When girls talk dreamily about the number of kids they want to have, I remember the funerals of children I’ve attended. Recently, I heard a young man describe the type of son he wanted to have, and I wondered how he would react to a child who was developmentally challenged.

There is no harm in dreaming. I have dreams, too, of exotic vacations, a beautiful house, and a loving husband. When I was a kid, I once cut out pictures from magazines and pieced together a blueprint for my dream home. I remember my mother looking wistfully at my patchwork house and saying, “I hope you get the house of your dreams.”

These days, I don’t snip out pictures from magazines anymore; I use Pinterest, instead. Several years ago, I, like many girls, created a Pinterest board, where I pinned lovely white dresses and delectable cakes. I still have that board, but it’s changed. As time passed, I started pinning more quotes about what makes a good marriage, because I’ve started to dream less about the marriage party and more about the actual marriage relationship.

How did this dream change? I can remember the exact moment. Together, my grandparents were separately battling the physical effects of a stroke and Alzheimer’s Disease. My grandmother, scrambling to keep her thoughts straight, was using her frail frame to leverage my grandfather from one seat to another. I looked at them and felt a new revelation dawn on my mind: This is love. This is what it means to vow “For better, for worse/ In sickness and in health/ Til death do us part”. This is it.

In this past year, again, I’ve been reminded of that moment as I have watched my best friend and her husband recover from an explosion that burned them both. They have the kind of strong love that I witnessed in my grandparents, though their love is still technically so young. My dreams of pretty dresses have faded almost to non-existence. My dream has shifted to a beautiful love instead.

Ultimately, I think suffering is supposed to change us for the better. It’s painful to view suffering in a positive light when we are in the midst of it. If we must encounter trouble, however, we should learn to look for the ways it will benefit us.

Suffering is a master teacher. Suffering tells us what is really important in life. What’s more important, the house or the family? What is more important, my appearance or my ability?

Suffering tells you the content of a person’s character. When you hit a rut in the road, and your cup of coffee spills, you feel frustration but not surprise. Coffee came out of the cup, because coffee was in the cup. Similarly, when suffering occurs, the true character of a person is revealed.

Perhaps most importantly, suffering teaches us to appreciate the mundane moments that bring relief. Have you ever enjoyed a really good cup of coffee while waiting in the hospital? Or sung a hymn with someone preparing to go to the Lord? Have you ever tilted your head toward the sun and listened to the birds sing after crying your eyes out? I’ve learned to look for those moments in times of hardship.

A lot of people of faith do not like to acknowledge suffering. I’ve heard people ardently declare that suffering is not in God’s will for his people. I do not believe that torment is for the people of God, but I do believe that suffering is something we will all encounter from time to time. Jesus suffered.

Isaiah prophesied that the coming Messiah would be a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” (Isa. 53:3)

I love the wording of the Passion Translation of Hebrews 2:18 : “He [Jesus] suffered and endured every test and temptation, so that he can help us every time we pass through the ordeals of life.”

Jesus said, “And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!” (John 16:33, TPT)

So, do we despair that suffering is inevitable? No, not by any means! We delight in knowing that while suffering is inevitable, God is ever faithful! We remind ourselves that our pain is not prophecy; our pain simply resets our focus on our purpose and passion. Look at the opening verses of Romans 5:

“1 Our faith in Jesus transfers God’s righteousness to us and he now declares us flawless in his eyes. This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, has done for us. 2 Our faith guarantees us permanent access into this marvelous kindness that has given us a perfect relationship with God. What incredible joy bursts forth within us as we keep on celebrating our hope of experiencing God’s glory!
3 But that’s not all! Even in times of trouble we have a joyful confidence, knowing that our pressures will develop in us patient endurance. 4 And patient endurance will refine our character, and proven character leads us back to hope. 5 And this hope is not a disappointing fantasy, because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us!“

This is our hope! This is our assurance! If you are dreaming, keep dreaming! If you are suffering, keep holding on to hope in Jesus! His compassion does not fail. There is nothing too hard for Him. He loves you with an everlasting love. Let’s trust God with our dreams and with our suffering. Maybe it’s time for our dreams to be re-drafted, even if they must be stenciled with suffering.