I have always loved the idea of gardening - whether that involved growing flowers simply because they're beautiful, or vegetables that can actually become delectable creations for our dinner table! However, over the last few years I have come to realize that the
idea of gardening and the
experience of gardening are two COMPLETELY different things! And the reason for this can be summed up in one word: WEEDS! I think I had a fluffy notion that if I planted seeds in the ground and watered them, making sure they had enough sun, I would eventually enjoy a robust crop of vegetables or flowers. Oh how wrong I was! Maybe that's what it was like for Adam and Eve before the Fall, but on this side of Genesis 3, the ground is most certainly cursed and it produces a never-ending supply of thorns and thistles for me (Genesis 3:17-18)! I was thinking that gardening could become an enjoyable hobby for me, and maybe it still can, but it has proven to be more painful toil than I ever imagined it would! For the majority of this summer, I have tended my flower garden at the front of our house, and my veggie garden in the back, not for the enjoyment of the process, but more out of necessity (the weeds were starting to look awful at the front of our house, shrouding the beauty of the flowers, and the tomato plants in the back garden were being choked out!).
As I was weeding yesterday, I remembered how a friend of mine once said that gardening makes her think about all the Scriptural references to soil and seeds, and how God is the Great Gardener, and I decided to start thinking about that (since I wasn't really enjoying the process!). I couldn't believe how big the weeds had grown, and as I ripped them out one by one, I thought about my own heart and how quickly the weeds of sin grow there too. My husband, Jon, mentioned this week in a conversation with a couple we were counseling, the concept that everything tends toward chaos or disorder ... that everything in the world is unraveling since the Fall ... relationships, health, families, and even my garden! Without cultivation, everything comes apart. Thank God that there is a Saviour who redeems us from the mess we are in! That because of his perfect life lived for me, and His death in my place, I am rescued and being put back together, rather than coming apart more and more.
As I pulled the weeds out and threw them in our wheelbarrow yesterday, I pictured God ripping out the sinful weeds in my heart that seem to sprout up all the time. My heart is just like my garden - get rid of one weed, and then in a week or two another one's there. But I want to be ruthless with weeds - both in my garden and in my heart! The process sure isn't fun - who wants to bend down and pull up physical weeds till your back hurts, or do the introspection and hard work that turning from our sin requires? On the surface it's the last thing we want to do! But deep down, we know that it is worth it to press on. Regarding physical gardening, it's worth it when I pluck delicious
cherry tomatoes right off the vine and enjoy them in a salad, or pull
into my driveway and see a garden bed of happy-looking flowers smiling
at me. And more importantly, regarding spiritual gardening, it's worth
it to submit to the weeding of the Great Gardener because
Jesus Himself is worth it. We died to sin and can no longer live in it (Romans 6:2). There's no other way to live as a Christian, but the way of repentance. We are not yet fully living in the reality of who we are as children of God, but we press on in response to all He has done for us (Phillipians 3). We press on to become who God has already declared us to be in Christ. Jesus died for us that we should no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died and was raised (2 Cor 5:15). And this is the best and fullest life possible! God doesn't reveal our sin and root it out of us to make our lives suck! He does it for our good! Jesus came to rescue us from sin completely, that we might have life to the fullest (John 10:10). First He justifies us, forgiving us for our sins and making us right with Him. Then He sanctifies us, getting rid of sin in our lives and changing us (which is this weeding process that we're talking about). And finally, He glorifies us, freeing us from the works and effects of sin forever - including our own entangling sins, the effects of others' sin on us and the pain and trouble caused by the world's unraveling. This is our glorious salvation!
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One Day both my heart and my garden will produce weeds no more and I am STOKED for that Day! To be free of sin completely?! That seems too good to be true sometimes! But I know it is delightfully true! Maybe in that Day I will have a garden in heaven! Then it will be a
real hobby with no painful toil! But, in the meantime, I will let the trials of gardening remind me that this redemption is already and not yet, and that in the narrow place in between, the Great Gardener is doing His work of sanctification in me. So I press on in hope till that great and glorious Day is here.
As I was weeding yesterday, I remembered how a friend of mine once said that gardening makes her think about all the Scriptural references to soil and seeds, and how God is the Great Gardener, and I decided to start thinking about that (since I wasn't really enjoying the process!). I couldn't believe how big the weeds had grown, and as I ripped them out one by one, I thought about my own heart and how quickly the weeds of sin grow there too. My husband, Jon, mentioned this week in a conversation with a couple we were counseling, the concept that everything tends toward chaos or disorder ... that everything in the world is unraveling since the Fall ... relationships, health, families, and even my garden! Without cultivation, everything comes apart. Thank God that there is a Saviour who redeems us from the mess we are in! That because of his perfect life lived for me, and His death in my place, I am rescued and being put back together, rather than coming apart more and more.
