What is growing in your Garden?

It’s summer and the seeds that we planted in the spring have given way to the plants that were hidden inside; plants that are now giving way to the fruit that they were destined to produce. Cold soil that was carefully prepared and tilled in the spring has given way to be the very place that gives birth to life itself.

Because we live on a corner and we have many who walk by to look at our gardens, we try to maintain our gardens in a way for others to look, linger, and enjoy.  Surrounding our house on all four sides we have flower plants and other greenery. Some of these plants are “annuals” and last only for one season and require new plants each spring. Some are “perennials” and are continuing or recurrent year after year and require tending and thinning each year. 

As I have grown older I have narrowed down what is growing in my gardens. I want only items that will produce real life. In my vegetable garden I have peppers of all variety and intensity of heat, a variety of tomatoes, peas, beans, squash, cucumbers, and herbs. And, my favorite; RED RASBERRIES; which I am able to collect and freeze enough over the next six weeks to eat for the next seven months.

Similarly, as I grow older in the Lord I have narrowed down what is growing in my ‘spiritual garden’. I am finding that I long to be a place where His life is seen in me. I long to create more room in my life for Him and Him alone. 

No, I don’t do it simply for others to look at and ponder; although that is a bi-product of a life in Christ. I long to prepare a place for His dwelling… I long to be a place where He dwells with me and walks with me much like God did when Adam was first created (see Genesis 3:8). 

So what is in your “spiritual” garden? What is growing in your life that comes back each year and requires maintenance? What needs to be planted over and over again as it seems to only last for a short season and then it is gone?

“garden” by Misty Edwards

      I am a garden enclosed
      A locked garden
      A fountain sealed
      I am Your resting place
      I am Your resting place
      Here oh Lord have I prepared      
      A place for You to dwell
      Here in the reservoir of me
      That You would dwell in my heart
      That I would be in You
      & You would be in me
      That I could fellowship with God
      Here where it’s You and me alone
      The very Glory of God on the inside of me
      I want to fellowship with You
 

Here it's You and me alone God You and me alone
Here it's You and me alone God You and me alone

      I am Your resting place
      For You said that You would be in me
      That I would abide in the vine
      Christ in me the HOPE of my glory

You've hedged me in with skin all around me
I'm a garden enclosed a locked garden
Life takes place behind the face.

So come into Your garden
Come into Your garden.

Here O Lord! Have I prepared a place for You!

I'm no longer my own I'm Your garden

I don't want to wasted my time living on the outside
I'm going to live from the inside out
I don't want to waste my life living on the outside
I'm going to live from the inside out