The Garden

At different times in my life, I have a recurring dream about a garden.  The garden plot is approximately twenty-five square feet.  There on the ground kneels a woman clad in gardening clothes, straw hat, and gloves.  Her back is to me.  She is carefully tending her little garden, working diligently and paying no attention to anything other than the garden.

Sometimes, she weeds.  Sometimes she's thinning and loosening the soil around the plants.  At other times, she plants or harvests, whichever is necessary.  A watering can filled to capacity stands faithfully by her side.  Regardless, of the task, she is extremely focused on her work.

The garden itself consists of straight, neat rows.  On the back rows are tall, mature plants ready to surrender their fruits and veggies.  The middle rows contain plants whose produce is maturing.  The front rows contain patches of plants just sprouting and places where seeds need to be sown.

The sun is always shining, and a gentle breeze is always blowing.  Birds are twittering, and a brook bubbles nearby.  Everything essential for the care and nurture of the garden is readily available.

I believe this garden represents our own individual relationship with God.  Relationship with anyone is grown; it doesn't just happen.  Growing things need constant care, else they wither and die.  So it is with our relationship with God.  It too needs tending.

Ultimately, it is our responsibility alone to cultivate this relationship with God.  Our family cannot do it for us.  Our friends cannot do it for us.  The Lord won't force it on us.  Our gifts cannot make it happen, and our deeds cannot buy it for us.  We must choose to have relationship with Him and to do the work of the gardener.  God is responsible for making things grow and for providing every necessary element to make that growth possible.

Initially, He created and provided a place for the garden.  He chose and invited us to be a part of His family.  He gave us a little spot reserved just for us, for our garden. 

Furthermore, He gave His "Son" to shine down upon us and the garden while the gentle breezes of His Spirit blow upon us and refresh us while we work.  Jesus is our way into the family.  He is our only door.  His precious blood and His faithful love reconciled us to God and ushered us into the family.  By His Spirit, we receive comfort as we journey through this life. 

On top of all of this, God's angels "twitter" holy songs of protection and deliverance and guidance about us continually both day and night while the divine water of life flows freely from a brook that never runs dry.  Everything we need for life and love and godliness has been provided, absolutely everything!  We tend the garden; God makes it grow.  Ultimately, all of us will one day stand before God and answer for our life or lack of it.

How do we tend this garden?  How do we cultivate relationship with God?

• Set aside time for the garden.  A faithful gardener tends his garden almost daily.  If we don't schedule the time, it just will not happen.  Relationships take commitment; commitment requires time and energy.  If this time isn't already a habit, then begin small. Set aside some time, and show up.  "If you build it, He will come."  Before long, that short time will grow into more and more and eventually into a constant walking throughout the day in the presence of God.
• Prepare the soil.  Preparing our spiritual garden begins in worship and thanksgiving and then moves to repentance and cleansing if needed.  We must remember who God is and who we are and are not.  We must allow His Spirit to show us the boulders in our lives, the places where we have become hardened by sin, and then remove them making the soil of our hearts ready for His planting.  We must allow Him to sift through our lives and then repent and be cleansed of all that is hindering the planting of His divine work in us.
• Plant the seed.  His word is the seed which needs to be planted in our hearts.  His written word helps us to know Jesus, the living Word of God.  He is our example.  He is our divine design, our model.  His are the steps we are to follow.  He is the way.  We have to know the word before we can be like the Word.  The more word we sow in our lives, the more we will be conformed to the fullness of Christ.
• Wait for the plant to grow, and care for it.  God makes the seed grow, and we have to be patient and wait on His timing.  If we continually dig up the plant to see if it is growing, we will kill it.  We must believe that the plant will grow and then let God do the growing.  Meanwhile, we must do the work of the gardener.  We must weed and water and fertilize and protect our spiritual garden.  This is most often done through prayer and relationships with our close friends within our family in Christ.  Through prayer and relationship, we discern what is good and what is not, and then we weed.  Through prayer and relationship, we nourish and protect our garden until the plants have produced what they were called to produce. 
• Harvest the produce.  God does not give us fruit; He gives us life and gifts and power and purpose.  Fruit, however, must be grown.  What will this fruit be?  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  What will this fruit enable us to do?  Live by the Spirit just like Jesus did.  We will know the Father's will and be able to do it.  We will become more and more like Jesus and do deeds in keeping with the gospel.  We will be able to love as He loved, to walk as He walked, to see as He sees, to talk as He talked.  In this we will honor God and bring glory to His name.  In this we fulfill our destiny - to be "little Christs" - Christians.

God stands ready and waiting to do His part; however, He needs our cooperation.  He has provided every necessary element to make the garden grow, especially grace - GREAT GRACE for the growing.  We must do the work of the gardener - be committed, worship, be thankful, repent, be cleansed, study, pray, have relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and do good deeds in keeping with the gospel.

My dream doesn't end here focused on this one little patch of garden.  At the end of the dream, the scene changes perspective.  No longer do I view one gardener at work in her garden; now I am on a hill overlooking a vast valley, a valley consumed by "tiny gardens."
Each individual garden produces a certain type of fruit or vegetable or nut.  Together, every food imaginable is represented.  It is complete.  Nothing has been left out.

So it is with God's garden.  Our individual gardens together make up His garden, His kingdom.  One day, soon I hope, my garden will complement yours, yours will complement mine, and ours will complement theirs so that the completeness of God, the fullness of Christ, will be made known throughout the entire world.  Wow!  That would be a tremendous harvest!!