Bones of the Garden

 







     

   

            It's winter out there.  Not much gardening going on.  They say that you can tell a lot about your garden in the winter.  The bones of your garden are exposed, the structure, the foundation, the design plan that everything hinges on.  When spring and summer come, all is glorious color and texture, filling the beds with beauties of multi-colored flowers, spilling over the edges of paths.  You don't see the bones in the summer when all things are colorful and gorgeous.  The time to see what a garden is really made of is in the winter.  It is then you can make changes and redesign bits of your garden.

           You can tell a lot about the bones of your spiritual life, also, in the wintertime.  When trials come or when days are dreary and mundane or dark, the foundation that has been laid really shows up.  It is easy to follow Jesus and be excited in the summer when all things are well and beautiful.  The real truth of your life in Jesus is revealed, though, in the winter.
   
           Foundational plants, like boxwood, small trees, grasses, or evergreens and arbors give framework for all the other plants to show their beauty throughout the seasons.  Otherwise, your garden has no order and can easily just become a mixup of multicolored plants.  It is the same in our spiritual life in Jesus.  My foundation, my spiritual bones, must be fed and nourished in Jesus through reading His Word and praying and talking to Him.  When the bones of these basic structures are built into my life, my spiritual garden has strength which will keep me through the dark winters of life.  There are seasons in spiritual life as well as in the garden.  When days are dark, stick on the basics.  God will build your soul strong and give your bones needed nourishment.  Spring will come eventually, and then He will send blossoms of beauty springing up.                                      K.C.

Who is the real helper?

                                                 

          Gardening is a never ending task that requires  lots of labor!  Always there is something to trim, cut back, burn, plant, deadhead, weed, spray, admire, train, coax and encourage.  Without helpers around here it just wouldn't happen.  Too many acres, too many weeds, too many tasks.  Without my faithful husband I simply couldn't be a gardner with this size of land.  Now our grandchildren are getting into the scene.  Reed wanted to "help" pull branches across the yard and throw them into the burn pile.  Papa graciously and slowly coached Reed in the process.  What a precious sight that melted my heart, to see Papa followed by 2 year old Reed "helping"!

          We have been studying Hebrews 11, the faith chapter in the Bible.  So often we focus on the characters in chapter 11 and their great faith.  Instead, I am suggesting that we need to focus on our Heavenly Father's gift of faith that He gives us.  We think we are "helping" God in His earthly tasks of harvest when in reality it is all about Jesus' help in our lives!  We receive grace and mercy to accept the gift of faith by believing in His work on the cross.  We receive His Holy Spirit, we receive strength, we receive gifts that enable us to serve and help.  So who is "helping" who?  

          God our Father desires our companionship, our presence, our worship.  He is so compassionate and patient toward us that He allows us to think we are "helping" Him by our service.  Papa allowed Reed the space to think he was a huge help, and that is what God does for us also.  He gives us faith, He gives us all we need to be on His team.  We so enjoyed being together with Reed and "working" together.  What a joy, what a privilege!  It melts my heart to think that God desires my companionship in such a way as this, and that He wants me on His team of helpers. Truly, Holy Spirit is our helper and will never leave us.  Now that is joy!

M & M's

                                                       

          Thinking through another new year, I asked the Lord Jesus what thoughts He had for me.  No big revelation has come to my heart.  But He has quietly spoken.  He said to guard my minutes.  Mind my minutes.  Multiply my moments.  Measure my mission.  This is largely a devotional page for thoughts from the garden, thus, the M & Ms sitting on the garden post.

          We can waste a lot of minutes each day, and those minutes are what God is addressing in my heart.  I don't know about you, but I can wile away a morning watching the garden grow.  God wants me to measure my mission, my task He has called me to.    Now I am not talking about staying busy or accomplishing more.  I am talking about minding how intentional my minutes are.  Spending minutes in awe at God's work in the garden or His marvelous creative design in birds are not wasted  minutes. It is more like He is saying to be ALL there every minute.  There is a difference between letting minutes tick away and deliberately living those minutes.  When I am consciously minding my minutes life takes on a thoroughly alive sense.  It is like intentionally living!  And that is what God is saying to me;  intentionally live for Me.                                                                                   K.C.

Hold Fast

          Hold fast!  Like the ivy holding fast to the post.  Without the post it surely wouldn't be climbing upward.  Takes a bit of patience to train ivy to go up the post, but with consistent
perseverance it takes off upward.  Sometimes a wayward tendril seeks its own path, but
eventually it either makes its way around the post or it falls downward.

          The book of Hebrews talks about holding fast the confidence and rejoicing of our hope
in Christ Jesus.  The hold Jesus has on us is powerful and life changing.  Nothing can snatch
us from His hand, nothing can separate us from His love.  John 10:28-29, Romans 8:39.  Scripture also teaches that we  hold on to Jesus through faith in Him.   I Corinthians 15:2, "hold fast that Word..."

          There are 2 holds in Psalm 63:8.  "My soul clings to you; Your right hand upholds me."  I am thinking that too often we focus on our part; I have to hold fast, I have to work, I have to press on, I have to climb that post.  Actually, the direction, the strength, motivation, the power comes from the post - the cross of Christ.  It comes through His working grace in us, showing us His goodness and glory, His sacrifice and offering to make us right with the Father.

          Jesus does so much for us through His grace that it makes our soul desire to cling to Him.  It isn't a duty, but a wonderful freeing rest and joy to cling to Him.  Jesus Christ not only saves us from our dark sin-heavy soul, but He gives our lives purpose and direction, meaning and hope.  What a joy it is to cling to the cross of Christ!  Have you ever seen ivy without a direction?  It just becomes a wandering vine that is a nuisance, taking root here and there, messing up the garden.  But give it a post or structure to grow on, and it becomes a majestic work of art in the garden!

          So hold fast the Post, hold fast to the Word, hold fast to the rejoicing of hope in Christ.
                                                                                                                                                       K.C.