I
|
remember my dad telling me on more than one
occasion that you are nearer to God in a garden than in any other place on
earth. It is in a garden that you really
understand how patient God has to be with us.
Look how long it takes plants to grow and the constant care they require
in order to mature and produce fruit. If
plants require that much attention and care from the farmer, just imagine how
much more love, care, and attention God lavishes on us as He grow us toward
spiritual maturity.
There is another lesson, a much
harder one, the garden also teaches us.
That is learning to accept and pray for God’s will. Anyone who has ever worked a garden knows the
frustration and the disappointment of receiving too little rain. I have seen my dad work in a garden—staking
tomato plants, pulling weeds, plowing around plants—all the while waiting for
and praying for rain with no results. It
almost seems God shuts His ears to our requests and our circumstances grow
worse instead of better. Then, one day,
the heavens open up and send down rain, just in the nick of time.
This sounds familiar in our
spiritual walk as well doesn’t it? We go
to our knees before God and pour out our hearts to Him. We bring our concerns for our families, our
friends, our co-workers, our pastor, our churches, and ourselves before His
throne. We wet the bed with our tears
and we pray with all our might for God to act and move in our behalf. We then close the prayer by asking that God’s
will be done. But do we really mean that?
Do we fully understand all that entails?
Jesus, himself, prayed this very
kind of prayer. In the Garden of Gethsemane
he had a talk with God. Jesus poured out
his heart and was so full of agony that drops of blood fell from his
forehead. In unspeakable and
incomprehensible agony he asked God for some other way to fulfill the plan of
salvation. Look at his request as
recorded in Matthew 26:39, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken
from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Jesus prayed this
prayer, not once, but twice that evening in the garden. Jesus knew the difficulty of praying and
accepting God’s will and in this prayer we find great encouragement to do the
same.
In life’s garden there are many
opportunities to talk to our Heavenly Father.
Sometimes we speak to Him of the goodness of His blessings on our
lives. Sometimes we bring requests to
him on behalf of other people and at other times we bring heavy hearts and
kneel before Him in silence. But every
time we come to Him, we must ask that His will be done. This is difficult when we are facing unknown
and trying circumstances. When there
seems to be no way out of a trial but to go through it, we still need to pray
for His will. God promised to be with us
through every part of life; He never promised to remove all the obstacles so
that life’s road would be easy.
I
|
n the garden that evening, Jesus
prayed for God’s will to be done. This
is the acid test of faith. We must be
earnest in our request for God’s will to be done, even when we don’t understand
all that entails. We must believe that
God is in complete control and that He knows what is best for us because it is
certain that we don’t know what is best for ourselves. So, the next time you are in prayer, don’t be
afraid to pray that God’s will be done in your life. He will be with you in every situation,
working to bring you to full maturity in Christ. When was the last time you had a
heart-to-heart with God? When was the
last time you had a talk in the garden with Him? How about having one today!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please share your thoughts and comments about today's Tidbit with us.