Recently as I was doing article reviews for a class I came across this little parable of sorts:
The story is told of a church–going farmer who was complimented by a
fellow congregant, “That is a fine garden you and the Lord have
there, brother.” To this, the old farmer replied, “Yes, but you should
have seen what it looked like when the Lord was doing the gardening
alone.”
The idea I got behind this whole concept was what does it look like when God is doing our gardening on his own? For God creates beautiful plants and everything else but we must continue to weed them and nurture them and look over our own gardens. I have found that in relationships and in other courses of life we tend to expect God to do our weeding. Slowly prayer becomes more about fix this or transform that: We begin bargaining with God. If you want this to work God, please make the person see my side of things.
As we pray I believe we need to remember what we are praying for and be careful of our wording changing the wording from making the person see things the way you do to praying for a softened heart is a lot different. God wants us to rely on Him and His power and glory above all else and in the end it's about co-laboring versus carrying the yoke by ourselves or expecting God to pick up all of the weeding alone.
If we really put our relationship with God in a human sense, it's easy to see that doing the mundane tasks of every day are a lot more fun and pass quickly when done with others. The old adage many hands make light work, so wouldn't it be the same that as we're weeding our lives out and picking out the bad and replacing things that could be harmful with good rich soil that we would do it with God? Discuss things with Him, wrestle with Him, and ultimately try to seek His will above all else. As we "garden" our lives it will go a lot faster and easier if we talk and keep constant communication with our creator.
When God does things on His own totally the garden may get filled with weeds and other things because God's original intention for man was to be in constant relationship with Him. As we explore the very beginning of Genesis it might be easy to imagine that after the first few days before the fall of man, Adam and Eve would chill with God and discuss their day with Him. Just spending time with their creator and sharing the excitement of all of the new discoveries they had made.
Taking our lives to a deeper level and exploring the heart of God will only cause us to take our own lives to a deeper level and explore our own hearts. Sometimes that comes in silent reflection and other times it comes with the bible or prayer... However, in the end we must remind ourselves our heart is still the dwelling place of the holy spirit so when we begin to seek deep within ourselves chances are, we'll run into our maker.
The story is told of a church–going farmer who was complimented by a
fellow congregant, “That is a fine garden you and the Lord have
there, brother.” To this, the old farmer replied, “Yes, but you should
have seen what it looked like when the Lord was doing the gardening
alone.”
The idea I got behind this whole concept was what does it look like when God is doing our gardening on his own? For God creates beautiful plants and everything else but we must continue to weed them and nurture them and look over our own gardens. I have found that in relationships and in other courses of life we tend to expect God to do our weeding. Slowly prayer becomes more about fix this or transform that: We begin bargaining with God. If you want this to work God, please make the person see my side of things.
As we pray I believe we need to remember what we are praying for and be careful of our wording changing the wording from making the person see things the way you do to praying for a softened heart is a lot different. God wants us to rely on Him and His power and glory above all else and in the end it's about co-laboring versus carrying the yoke by ourselves or expecting God to pick up all of the weeding alone.
If we really put our relationship with God in a human sense, it's easy to see that doing the mundane tasks of every day are a lot more fun and pass quickly when done with others. The old adage many hands make light work, so wouldn't it be the same that as we're weeding our lives out and picking out the bad and replacing things that could be harmful with good rich soil that we would do it with God? Discuss things with Him, wrestle with Him, and ultimately try to seek His will above all else. As we "garden" our lives it will go a lot faster and easier if we talk and keep constant communication with our creator.
When God does things on His own totally the garden may get filled with weeds and other things because God's original intention for man was to be in constant relationship with Him. As we explore the very beginning of Genesis it might be easy to imagine that after the first few days before the fall of man, Adam and Eve would chill with God and discuss their day with Him. Just spending time with their creator and sharing the excitement of all of the new discoveries they had made.
Taking our lives to a deeper level and exploring the heart of God will only cause us to take our own lives to a deeper level and explore our own hearts. Sometimes that comes in silent reflection and other times it comes with the bible or prayer... However, in the end we must remind ourselves our heart is still the dwelling place of the holy spirit so when we begin to seek deep within ourselves chances are, we'll run into our maker.
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