The Master Gardener

                                                     

 

I am anticipating a summer of BEAUTY in my backyard…. after the spring work....turning the soil to loosen it and get rid of lava rock put there by a previous owner, rock that I find as deep as I can go in turned up soil; watering the dry ground; conditioning the clay soil (hard, clumpy, poorly drained soil); digging the holes that will receive the roots of plants and bulbs.  Then after planting… more watering, fertilizing and…watching the strong dry Panhandle winds pound the fragile plants…the single digit humidity and lack of rain….High Plains weather that can erupt into powerful storms and hail...temperatures that even in May dropped to below freezing.  I'm anxiously waiting…will the harshness of nature harm the young and tender potential for beauty?  The warmer weather is here now, but the Panhandle winds have been ferocious, and I still want to diligently pour into my plants all that is needed to make them flourish.  I don’t have the foresight to know what may come…will my care be enough?  I am NOT a “Master Gardener”…..

      

But Christ IS.  How our Lord watches over us and and tenderly cares for us!  He diligently works the fallow ground of our hearts—removes the lava rock we allow to form there—pressures, wounds, circumstances, bitterness that changed our heart from something soft and moldable, burning with the heat of passion for life, to cold and broken hard rock with jagged edges that cut and scrape hands that get too close to it, and keep the fertile soil from nourishing the roots of abundant life.

 The MASTER GARDENER is always conditioning the soil of our heart…he provides the humus for us to walk in repentance and humility… that place that agrees with God about our sins, and in forgiveness washes it away to keep it from clumping up into tough clods that reveal a hardness of heart that is no longer a rich environment for new growth. Once we are planted He does not leave us or forsake us…He lovingly keeps us in HIS sight, always watering, nourishing, pruning, even transplanting if necessary.  If we see ourselves as His plantings in this world, wouldn’t we want to stay in that place which has been created and conditioned for our growth?

As I, not a master gardener, looked for annuals and perennials that would flourish in my yard, I had to keep in mind that for plants to thrive there, I must choose those plants that would like the coolness and soft light of shade.  Putting a sun-loving plant in my shady backyard is a fight against nature.  I’ve watched plants wither and die, or struggle along in weakness and malnourishment, stunted because I tried to make them grow in the wrong environment.  Our MASTER GARDENER never makes this mistake when He places us in this world, HIS garden.

He knows the environment, the circumstances, the people, and the storms that will make us BEAUTIFUL in HIS TIME and in HIS WAY.  And as He numbers our days, He makes a way for us to become…what HE intends…..the beauty and likeness of HIS SON….who yielded His life to the darkness and harshness of the world… who was made perfect in His obedience to the MASTER GARDENER…who embraced where he was planted and yielded the FRUIT of THE SPIRIT, an abundance of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness….full of Grace....who gave himself to be the GLORY of God …JESUS, the PERFECT PERENNIAL, yielding NEW LIFE year after year…age after age…producing a beautiful garden of LIVES made in His image.

I anxiously anticipate the beauty of my flowers…how much more THE MASTER GARDENER anticipates the fulfillment and beauty of His completed work in us.

When Almost All is Lost...

Hasn't the news been unsettling....for a while now.  How far do we need to go back?  But considering the tornadoes this week, the fires burning here in Texas and literally within a very few miles of our home (not threatening us though), the flood along the Mississippi, and storms going on even this evening from East Texas to Ohio, ...and that's just in America....do we look at the signs....at the seasons....?

When I see the pictures of devastation, it is hard to even imagine the trauma and heartbreak that families are going through.

As I prayed for our fellow countrymen and women, children, and first responders, my heart so moved by what these people are feeling and seeing, what they've lost....I tried to make sense of it all.  Thoughts came and went...arguing against each other.  

Can we make sense of it?  Should we try to make sense of it?

God is God of the weather. He rules the wind, the waves....the floods.... the tornadoes....

  

BUT HE IS A GOOD GOD....ALL the time, the same yesterday, today, and forever... 

Job asked, "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?"..."In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job 2:10......

...and I think of Sarah Palin's account of her conversation with her husband, Todd, after they found out their little son would be born with Down's Syndrome....she asked Todd, 

"Why us?" and he replied, "Why not us?" (italics mine)

I think of yesterday's devotion (May 24) in My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers, based on Revelation 1:17:

"And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, 

'Do not be afraid...'"  

"...In the midst of the awfulness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ....the right hand of the Everlasting Father....it is ineffable peace and comfort, the sense that 'underneath are the everlasting arms,' full of sustaining and comfort and strength.  When once His touch comes, nothing at all can cast you into fear again.  Do I know Him like that?"....

...."and if I'm ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God."  (italics mine)

At the end of the day...what  really gave me some peace...was this thought....When almost all is lost in this world, what really matters is love....the greatest of the three....faith, hope and love.

The love of God is far greater than the storm and what it has taken. 

I'm no expert on the theology of this kind of loss.  But my family has experienced tragic loss.  A 16 year old niece lost in a 4-wheeler accident with my son, physically intact, but scarred.  A brother-in-law, father of the niece, suddenly gone at age 50, only 5 years after his daughter was buried.  The sister-in-law and her 2 sons, at that time not yet men, left alone, struggling in every way.  The loss of our livelihood and ranching lifestyle after a serious back injury, that except for God's healing power, almost left my husband paralyzed.  Years of adjustment, physically, financially, spiritually....but along the way....LOVE of God and family sustained us...through struggle and victory....grief and healing.... 

because we were raised up... by the hand of God.

One thing I learned in loss, that was monumental for me, was that I had to trust in the sovereignty of God (Faith), the Promises of God (Hope), and the Love of God... to be my All in All.

To you who have lost...may you find His hand lifting you up by His love. 

Waiting......cont'd

In my post "Waiting..." I promised more on that subject but then the next day grandson #3 was born and the week took on a life of its own....so today, I try to bring together those thoughts again....

I finished that post with quotes from Corrie Ten Boom's book, Not I, but Christ..... "When God says, 'No' or 'Wait,' it is because He knows what we do not know,".... and from a letter written while in prison during WWII, she wrote, "I talk much with my Savior. I receive a deeper insight into time and eternity."

And from Ann Voscamp's book, One Thousand Gifts,  "Life is dessert---too brief to hurry........'Wherever you are, be all there,' is only possible in the posture of eucharisteo.  I want to slow down and taste life, give thanks, and see God."(italics hers)

Is not our common human error, when it comes to time, that we live by clocks and calendars....days of the week and months of the year...by birthdays and anniversaries.....by decades and stages of life....by schedules created by mere men and women....by earth time instead of God's kingdom time?

 

Especially when we are waiting, we tend to live by earth time.  As Americans, probably the most "scheduled" people on planet earth, we somehow think we can keep our God on our schedule! How's that workin' out for us?  I can hear you laughing now....

"Yet those who wait for the Lord

Will gain new strength;

They will mount up with wings like eagles,

They will run and not get tired,

They will walk and not become weary."

Isaiah 40: 31

If we would only take to heart what God's Word says about time and waiting....I believe our heart would beat slower, our anxiety level would drop, and faith and peace would rise up.....we might "have ears to hear" and "eyes to see"....what God is doing....

in His Time....Kingdom time....Real time....Holy time....

Dear friends....do we have to be in prison to understand God's timing and His kingdom?  No, of course not....but we know from those who have gone to prison or have lived in a prison of their own making, God was there with them....in earth time and kingdom time. And when we wait for the Lord to accomplish what "He knows that we do not know", we actually gain new strength, can mount up with wings, victoriously and gloriously, like eagles....and have strength for the journey of waiting....

Ann Voskamp so perfectly describes this journey, "Life is dessert....too brief to hurry."  And I have to agree that we only begin to truly understand God's kingdom as we offer thanksgiving, eucharisteo....when time stands still and we recognize His majesty and omnipotence, when we "taste life...and see God."

Life is not a checklist.....

Be still and KNOW that He is GOD

HIS timing is PERFECT....

Whatever you are waiting for....LOOK FOR HIM INSTEAD!

grandson #2 with his daddy

 

            Jesus said we must have childlike faith to enter His kingdom....sometimes our Father throws us up in the air...and it seems we just hang there for awhile, with our pants down, so to speak,.....but His arms are within reach and ready to catch us....when we see His face....and His love....and glimpses of His magnificence....no matter how long we're "up in the air."