When God is gardening in your heart
I rolled over in bed and cried into his shoulder, “I just want to have a good heart.” Why are there so many weeds?
God has been gardening in my heart.
When I think garden I think of encouraging tender tendrils, carefully cultivating the sweet little shoots poking up their hesitant heads. I think of my little green watering can, patting down dark soil, picking sprigs of Basil, even gently tugging at carrot tops, unearthing the edible roots.
It’s all very romantic.
But this weekend’s gardening wasn’t romantic at all.
It was hot, sweaty, back-breaking labor. Of course I didn’t do very much of it, but my husband is half-hunched over today because he did.
Since we live on a little suburban plot, a friend in the country suggested that together we do a family garden. We’d split the cost, the labor, and the produce. They’d supply the land. Our kids homeschool together so it was a perfect learning opportunity. We filled our kitchens with sprouting seeds, and this weekend we broke ground.
Or, rather, the ground broke us. Not sure who did more of the breaking.
Our two dear husbands labored for hours over a rototiller, tearing out stubborn grass to lay bear the rich, dark soil beneath. They hoed, shoveled, raked, loaded up a truck-load of grassy surface to haul away. Every kid had a tool in hand–little trowels and rakes, tiny plastic sand toys put to use. Little forms bent in labor, little hands shading eyes from the sun. And I’ll admit, as I stood out there in the heat, hoeing up stubborn ground, all I could think was,
“Man, this is hard.”
By quitting time the kids were dirt from head to toe. We were sweaty, smelly, exhausted. Happy, but beat. And we’d only scratched the surface.
If anything, beginning the work just showed me how much more work needs to be done.
It seemed so simple before we started. Now, a $.99 bag of carrots from Safeway seems like a heck of a deal.
But we’re committed. And, I’m glad. I know it will be worth it, not just for the fresh tomato salsa, but for the work, the camaraderie, the myriad lessons for our children on work, growth, soil, seeds. As the primary illustration used in scripture, it makes sense we might want to investigate it ourselves. But man, the work sure is hard.
Just like the work of sanctification.
I’m reading a book, Battlefield of the Mind (more on that later), and one of the things I’m seeing is how great is the work that needs to be done in transforming my mind. In making it holy. In make it new. In thinking God’s thoughts after Him.
It didn’t seem like a big deal until I started. Now that I’ve broken ground (or it has broken me), it’s clear that there is much more to be done. When we sing, “Heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen, show me how to love like You have loved me…” It sounds so romantic. Like plucking tender Basil leaves or gently patting down soil.
But in reality, that transforming work is more like a 8-horse-power tiller, blades grinding, slicing soil, two grown men working with all their strength through the heat of the day.
That’s the kind of gardening God is doing. The reason?
He’s actually changing who we are.
In our garden project, we’re not just patting some new soil into pots, we’re actually changing an old field into a place where food will grow. A place of fruit, abundance, life. This square of earth will have a new identity, a new purpose.
Just like me. Just like you.
We’re re-birthed in the twinkling of an eye, but we’re made new, transformed, sanctified by the labor-intensive work of God’s Spirit in our lives. He breaks up the fallow ground, uproots the weeds, pulls out the rocks. We sweat, are fatigued because we see all the work left to do.
But you know what? We’re committed. And we have a good promise for what is in store:
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Gal 6:9
We will reap. A harvest of righteousness.
That’s even better than fresh tomato salsa. (Barely)
Thanks for reading.
Week's end with thanks
- Hike up the Molalla River Corridor with my man. Hardy Creek washes up memories of four-years-ago, when we lived in another world and did that all the time. Mud squishes beneath our feet and trees tower above our heads.
- Gift of sunshine that lasts just long enough.
- Clean home.
- Day of rest with Papa & Oma.
- Fresh salmon dinner.
- Delicious new salad dressing, inexpensive and healthy: drizzle olive oil and white vinegar over salad, then sprinkle with seasoned salt. YUM.
- Fifteen pounds of organic carrots. Thanks, Dani!
- Eating our way through thirty pounds of organic Fuji apples. So delicious!
- Fitness finally.
- Both kids peeing on the side of the road. You gotta do what you gotta do. (It was in the country!)
- Dutch: “Mommy, who am I going to marry?”
- Dutch: “Mommy, I’m going to help you learn about God. God loves you. Sometimes you forget that, but you need to know that.”
- Battlefield of the Mind.
- I’d Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper. (Not as bad as it sounds!)
- Watching a dear family in church. History paints beauty.
- A well-timed message: learning to abide in the stillness.
- Single-Minded Conference. Getting so excited!
- Beautiful Memorial Day, my man at home. Glimpses of sunshine, working in the yard. Organic heirloom tomato plants planted, lawn aerated, all ready for someone to buy this beautiful place!
- Community Group BBQ. I just love these people … laughter, love, friends new and old. A place to just be.
- Kids playing well together.
- Heidi flirting with Derek. Uh oh.
- Getting re-inspired in the healthy-eating department by this article.
- Foot problems forcing me to buy Birkenstocks! Uh oh. Composting, gardening, organic food, homemade household products — I’m kind of borderline hippie. I promise you I will not quit wearing deodorant. Oh, and I drive an SUV, that disqualifies me for sure.
- Weeping over a blog post. Thank you, Ann.
- My man who listens, really listens. He is a gift every day.
- This amazing moment listening to children’s worship music, looking over and seeing Dutch & Heidi sitting together reading the Bible. On their own! Sharing, “reading”, turning pages together. I didn’t want to breath for fear of shattering the moment. So precious. I love those bugs.
- Dutch dancing to worship music.
- Dutch announcing, “Mommy, I became a Christian!” He said he prayed, “Jesus, I give you myself,” when he was in bed all by himself. Don’t know if it’s “real” but it’s pretty precious nonetheless! Will just keep fanning that little flame.
- Sunflower seeds.
- Fruit water.
- Keifer
- End-of-year women’s ministry dinner. Overwhelmed by love. Amazed by grace. Inspired all afresh to do this thing called ministry. Love those women.
- Two kiddos dr. appointments, 5 shots, 3 hours, and a grocery trip later and both kids still smiling. Miracle.
- Cody & Dutch’s theological conversation: “Jesus is God’s MIDDLE name.”
- Trader Joe’s miniature carts.
- Trader Joe’s free coffee samples.
- Crockpot chili.
- Community garden with a friend. So fun!
- Missionaries heading to Papua. Amazed and inspired by them.
- A SUNNY WEEKEND!
- Day in the backyard, playing t-ball with kids.
- Washing windows.
- Cheerful chores.
- Afternoon in the front, my man and I lounging in sunshine with books.
- Neighbors.
- Pulling weeds.
- Slight sunburn.
- Fancy Nancy.
- Warm breeze.
- Re-training my mind.
- Leaning on my man.
- Falling into grace.
- Finding hope in Christ alone.
F is for Freedom: Addiction vs. Nutrition
We began talking here, about finding freedom from an addiction to food. The battle is really the same, no matter what the particular lust, so we talked about the ANTHEM way of battling temptation and the resolve of Locking of the Lawnmower if there’s a particular item which causes us harm. Today I’d love to share one more little tidbit that helped me immensely in my walk away from frustration and into freedom.
Addiction vs. Nutrition
There are two basic ways to approach the issue of food. It finally became clear that part of my problem was only addressing the issue by one or the other of these approaches rather than by both. Both must be addressed. Here’s what I mean:
Years ago I read the book Weigh Down by Gwen Shamblin. This book has sold more than million copies, with good reason. She very rightly addresses the issue of diet and weight loss from the perspective of addiction, that is that we try to fill a spiritual void with physical food. Her entire philosophy can be simmered down to this:
- Eat food when you are physically hungry (stomach growling)
- Eat spiritual food when you are spiritually hungry (lonely, needy, tired, weary, sad)
Absolutely. In my opinion, she is spot on. And this simple truth seriously changed my life. The simple differentiation between spiritual hunger and physical hunger is huge. As Beth Moore says,
Every excess is a sign of emptiness.
If that’s not the most profoundly true statement I don’t know what is. Every time we battle with an excess we can be sure there is some emptiness in our heart. Every time. So first we must address the issue of addiction. (Filling our hearts with a substance rather than Christ.) Books that deal with nutrition and not addiction are missing the point entirely.
However, Shamblin’s book makes a slight misstep in that she enthusiastically maintains that it makes NO difference whatsoever WHAT you eat. The only thing that matters is when (at true hunger). She justifies this by quoting New Testament scriptures that show that all foods are clean and that only what comes out of a man makes him unclean.
I totally agree. Christ made all things clean. What we eat does not make us more spiritual or unspiritual.
But, it can help us on the road to wholeness.
For me, the true freedom came through addressing both important issues. In the Old Testament the reason that God gave certain dietary guidelines was that God wanted to communicate what was good for people! Just as He told people not to sin because it would cause them harm, He advised them not to eat animals with cloven hoof (i.e. pigs) because, quite frankly, it’d probably give them a heart attack! We don’t have to follow the clean and unclean Old Testament statutes, but we are wise to consider that there must have been something behind God’s Words or else He wouldn’t have spoken them. Make sense?
The key is in addressing both.
If we only address nutrition, we can be super-healthy-diet-freaks and still be overweight and living in bondage because we haven’t dealt with the spiritual food/physical food issue of addiction.
If we only address addiction, we can get skinny to be sure, but we still may not be walking in the wholeness and health God intended for us. I’ve been there. I was skinny, to be sure, but I battled headaches and PMS and fatigue and all sorts of things that accompany poor nutrition.
Again, friends, certainly not claiming I do this perfectly or have this all figured out. But on my own journey it has been the addressing both addiction and nutrition which has brought true freedom to my life. Doesn’t it always seem to be the enemy’s plan to get us falling off to one extreme or the other? So often all we need is a balanced approach.
Thanks so much for reading.
How God Disappoints
We saw who God disappoints: those on whom He has a great call. We saw why God disappoints: so that we will believe.
Today we get a beautiful glimpse of how our gracious, tender, loving, and wise God disappoints those He loves.
Let’s head back to John 11 and pick it up in verse 17. Remember Lazarus is sick, about to die, and Mary and Martha have called Jesus to heal their brother. Jesus deliberately waits two days, then goes to them.
“Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.”
They finally get to the house and Lazarus has already been dead and buried four days. I love this–Jesus doesn’t just miss the boat by a few minutes—but by FOUR days! He really blew it! Dead, buried, gone. All hope is gone. Lazarus is DEAD. And now here’s the thing that is so remarkable about God. He doesn’t just kind of disappoint us. When He strips away something, He lets it die all the way. It isn’t like Lazarus just breathed his last and maybe there’s hope of reviving him within the hour. When God lets something die in our lives, it’s dead. SO dead. Dead and buried four days. It stinks. He lets it sink in. He lets us grieve, wail, weep. For four days, alone, they thought all hope was lost.
Now check out Mary’s response:
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (v.32).
Ouch. Anybody else hear the edge in her voice? This is a woman in pain. Haven’t we all, at some point, said this to Jesus:
“If you would have been here, none of this would have happened.”
The finger is pointed, and it’s pointed straight at God. Thankfully, Jesus let’s it go. He can handle our pointed fingers, He knows the pain they feel, and shows compassion.
But here is the remarkable thing we see in this passage that we cannot miss. Although Jesus has deliberately disappointed them and left them to grieve, all alone, hopeless and confused, for four days, we then read:
“Jesus wept” (v.35).
This is how God disappoints us: by entering into our pain.
God grieves with us. The shortest verse in the Bible. He “groaned in His Spirit” and was troubled. Why? He is God, so obviously it’s not because He didn’t know that Lazarus was about to be raised from the dead. So if He’s not crying because of Lazarus, why is He crying?
Because of Mary and Martha.
Because of us.
He weeps because we weep. He chooses to feel all that we feel. He is in us, with us, loves us so intensely that when we are crushed, He is crushed.
Jesus chooses to feel every pain, every disappointment, ever heartache with us. The God we serve and love and worship chooses to experience every ounce of pain that we experience, with us. When He chooses to afflict us, He is choosing to afflict Himself. If you are hurting, God is hurting with you. God weeps with you.
Scripture tells us to weep with those who weep:
God does the same.
God has wept with me. He wept with them. He weeps with you. Whenever He strategically allows disappointment in our lives He walks in the midst of it with us. That is how He does it.
He does it with tears streaming down His face and us tucked into His arms.
I pray that today, whatever your situation, that God would translate these words into your heart. That you would know His nearness, His closeness, His tears that fall because yours fall too. I pray you’re encouraged today by His nearness. Thanks for reading.