I have learned a lot from God while tending my gardens over the years. Gardening helps me understand God's creativity, His designing of the Universe, and the natural timing of life. Gardening reminds me that God's timing is perfect, even when I don't understand it. I have been gardening for 35 years, yet it still amazes me how a seed can be planted in the dirt, and emerge to bring forth a new plant, which can grow, mature, and bear fruit.
One of my favorite songs has always been "In the Garden." Although many people only sing it around Easter, I sing it year-round. My garden is a place of hard work, and refuge from the world around me. If I've had a particularly difficult week, you can find me taking my frustrations out on the weeds, or by turning a patch of grass into a tillable area. Sometimes my garden is simply soothing. I work lovingly around the plants, weeding, watering, tying up the tomatoes, and listening to the birds sing. Sometimes we just sit and marvel at the ants, or the giant earthworms.
Each day in the garden is different. Each day brings a new lesson, and usually a new joy. I know some of my friends are not the gardening type, that's OK, I know they find creative expression in other ways. Whatever your method of expressing your God-given creativity, find some time to enjoy it, and time with God, this weekend! You'll be thankful you did!
In The Garden, by Charles A. Miles, 1913
- I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses,
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.- Refrain:
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
- Refrain:
- He speaks, and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing. - I’d stay in the garden with Him,
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.
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