Good
Morning All,
Genesis 2:8; “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and
there he put the man whom He had formed”
There is a poem by Dorothy Frances Gurney
entitled “God’s Garden”. In this poem is
a verse that goes like this.
The kiss of the sun for
pardon,
The song
of the birds for mirth,--
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Then
anywhere else on earth.
I am not sure why this poem came to
me. Perhaps the fact that the land is
awakening with new growth and new life and my wife and I are preparing our gardens. I
am anticipating the warmth of the day, the smell of the flower, the feel of the
dirt in my hand, the serenity of just sitting in a garden and listening to the
birds or watching the squirrels. I can
sit quietly and read or drink my coffee or just close my eyes and enjoy the
whole moment. Perhaps, as I sit in my
office and the time, we spend in our self-imposed but strongly encouraged
quarantine is wearing me down and I long for the garden again.
Our faith lives can be like this as
well. There are times when it feels like
God’s love is distant and cold. We see no
beauty; we smell no beauty; we feel no joy.
Soon we feel the bleakness of the dreary night. Soon we think the beauty is gone
forever. Yet we can rest assured that
they are not.
When times and days like this set in,
first of all recognize that the devil and our sinful nature is at work on
us. It is their attempt to deprive us of
God’s peace and comfort. We need to
remember God’s promises. We need to
remember the God’s love and grace are always there for us. At no point in time does he ever abandon us,
we may walk away, or we may experience a time when the devil convinces us that
God’s love is gone like the flowers in wintertime. Yet we know of God’s perfect love for us.
It is
his love that is the beauty of the garden.
It is his love that gives us the hope and the certainty that there will
be a better tomorrow. God’s grace
supplies us with all that we need to see this.
So when the devil battles us and assails us with the dullness of a
dreariness that seems to remove all hope; always remember that the devil is
already defeated, Christ, through his death and resurrection, have given us the
final victory and the guarantee that we will live in that garden of beauty, walking
with God in the cool of the morning, for eternity.
If prayer and listening to God speak to you
through the Scriptures fail to help lift the cloud of darkness then find
someone who you can talk to so that they can help you see the beauty that God
has for us. This is another tool that
God uses to help and comfort us, to help us find the garden.
Father of love, there are times when I lose the garden to the devil’s
false illusions. Help me to grab onto
your wonderful grace and enlighten my life with your splendor. Be with those who are suffering now. Lift them from the pit. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret
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