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This is the time of year when gardens are a place of much activity. The growing season is at its peak and plants, flowers, vegetables, fruits and even weeds are all seeking to stand up and be noticed as they grow a little bit more each day. All of this commotion brings other things along as well. Birds, bugs, raccoons, or other critters may drop by to have a sample of whatever looks good to them. Even a neighbour may pop in to find out why your tomato plants look so much better than his.
Yet with all of this activity, gardens are often seen as places of quiet reflection and relaxation. Many people look forward to spending some uninterrupted time tending their garden.
Our inner lives have often been compared to a garden. It is important for us to tend this garden well. Gordon MacDonald has written, “For me the appropriate metaphor for the inner spiritual center is a garden, a place of potential peace and tranquility…when the inner garden is under cultivation and God’s Spirit is present, harvests are regular events. The fruits? Things like courage, hope, love, endurance, joy, and lots of peace. Unusual capacities for self-control, the ability to discern evil and to ferret out truth are also reaped” (Ordering Your Private World, pg.118, 120).
We have a need to practice the presence of God and allow Him to work in the soil of our spiritual lives. In Ps.51:10, David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me”. He understood that he needed God to change his heart. We also need God to transform us. He invites us to feed on His Word – not just a quick verse or chapter, but slowly meditate upon it. He beckons us to commune with Him in prayer – not just a hurried list of requests, but genuine worship as well. He calls us to trust and wait upon Him with our future – not worry and fret over the unknown. He invites us to serve Him out of love and devotion – not simply obligation and duty. He releases us from sin, guilt, and frustration as we let Him prune, water, and care for us. These things cannot be rushed or hurried, just as we cannot rush the plants in our physical garden.
How about you? Are you taking time this summer to let God cultivate your life, to pull out the weeds, to nurture the things that He has planted in you? If you do, someday there will be a great harvest. I’m certain of it!
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“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I have sent it”. (Isaiah 55:10,11)
God Bless You this summer!
Pastor Peter Lemont
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