The Love of Gardening

Thou shalt be like a watered garden. Isaiah 58:11

Where do we look to find the constancy of God's love? Every Christian has something, which strikes that chord of closeness and belief that God will always be there to care and provide for us. If you are a gardener like me, perhaps you, too, have found this message revealed through plants and flowers.

We meet the very first gardener, Adam, in Genesis 2:15: "And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." Thus, our love affair with gardening had begun.

Isn't it amazing that many of the food producing plants God provided in the earliest of gardens still grow in our gardens today? In Numbers 11:5 (KJV) we read: "We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic."

Apart from the food producing plants, many gardeners believe that there is no beauty on earth greater than that found in a flower garden. How would you define beauty? An old Hispanic Proverb describes it in this way: Love beauty, it is the shadow of God on the universe.

When Jesus needed to talk with the Father, He often sought the beauty and solitude of a garden. Just as Jesus felt closer to God there, so, too, do we. It's not at all surprising when gardeners tell us that the most important growing, which takes place in a garden is that of the gardener, himself or herself.

Prayer: Thank you, Father, for the beauty of Your earth and for the food that You continue to provide. Nowhere else is the beauty and the constancy of Your love revealed more wondrously than through the seeds of faith that grow as we garden with You. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Judith A. Welch