Every morning at breakfast time, I look out our kitchen window into our neighbor's garden. He often goes out to have breakfast with his wife in the garden. After breakfast, he goes around watering the plants, and cultivating the soil. His plants look amazingly healthy and happy and he has all kinds-- bonsai all lined up in one place; tomatoes, pumpkins, corn, other flowering plants, etc. The garden extends all around his house and the rest of the yard is a carpet of bermuda grass. Birds come to sing in the branches of the trees. They seem to enjoy the garden as much as our neighbor does.
I enjoy looking at the garden from our breakfast table but I often wonder how it would feel like to step into that garden to see the bonsai plants up close, smell the flowers and examine the details of each kind. I envy the birds in the freedom they have to fly from one part of the garden to the other. They sing and play and have no care in the world. They need no permission to enter the garden… they just go and the gardener welcomes them for they add to the overall beauty and joy of the place. It is what the gardener intended… to create a place of beauty and rest where birds and other creatures… and yes, even he himself can come to rest and enjoy the pleasures of BEING.
Ah! But this is just a picture of a greater reality I have with my Heavenly Father. He has built me a garden so much more beautiful and restful than what my physical eyes can see. I have a secret place that He cultivates for me to enter anytime without having to ask permission. He welcomes it! He delights in it! He invites me to come… not just for breakfast when everything is new and fresh and joyful...but anytime of the day when I feel the heat of the burning sun or whenever I feel tired or lonely or deflated.
There are so many things to DO in His garden. I can walk with Him barefoot on the soft grass while He shows me the details of each plant, each flower, each fruit tree. I can feast my eyes on the beauty of His creation. I can touch the petals of a rose and smell its fragrance. I can talk to Him and ask Him questions about things I don't understand. I can sing with the birds and praise the Gardener with my heart for all the beautiful things He has put there for me to enjoy. But most all, I can just BE STILL and be at rest as I gaze into the beauty of the Gardener and His unfailing love towards me. I marvel at the fact that He planted this special garden with the sole intention of fellowshipping with me... to ENJOY ME!
The Gardener wants me to come often but even when I don't come the garden is there always waiting for me. He faithfully tends it, cultivates it, creating more beautiful things for me to enjoy when I do come. He is tireless and determined to lavish His love and creativity on me. There is no end to His welcome and everyday I fall in love all over again with this One who who wakens me every morning to whisper,
"Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me!Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone! Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world’s a choir—and singing! Spring warblers are filling the forest with sweet arpeggios.. Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover—come to me! Come, my shy and modest dove—leave your seclusion, come out in the open. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is soothing and your face is ravishing. " (Song of Songs 2:10-14 The Message)
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