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.
Than
anywhere else on earth.
I am not sure why this poem came to me.
Perhaps the fact that the weather has been warmer than we usually expect
and the lure of the garden is calling
Perhaps, I am missing 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. 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 at
a hectic time of the year, 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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