How GOD Speaks to Me in My GARDEN

 

I decided to write about how God speaks , and teaches me ...in my garden. It is possible that unless you believe in God, you may not understand this...then again, that may be irrelevant. As a gardener, there are many ways that I feel God speaks to me , and two ways are the strongest. 

No. 1 is in the silence, the stillness of day or the feel of a breeze on your skin while you are working.  This world is so polluted with noise, from the life we live...radios or cd players ( which I like ), cell phones,  TV , computers, cars driving by, airplanes, trucks, people , construction , etc. Not all of that is bad, but they make a day outside a respite from senseless, gaudy, worldly noise. Now I am not one of those , hush-hush quiet types...but in a garden..when you are on your knees in the dirt...you are in the quintessential ' prayer and worship ' position. You are working, to beautify and create at your home. I do not believe in ' Mother Earth' , or ' Fairies' or ' New Age ' spirituality. I believe in the one Almighty God , and He started us out in a garden.

So silence, stillness are conducive to feeling God's presence, to feel like listening to Him, to feel like talking to Him .

Or in my case, lots of asking, wondering...whining about life.  Our present , past , choices and decisions , heartaches and triumphs.Thank goodness He is used to that with all of us. 

The No. 2 way I feel God speaks to me in my garden, and this may seem very odd to some folks...is through weed-pulling, weed-irritation, weeds period.

I am down on my knees, annoyed with all these weeds that I cannot EVER stop growing...and I feel God say, " See, if you do not go deep, deep into the reason of why you want something, need something, have an addiction to something...if you cannot EXTRACT the ROOT of the problem...then you will never get rid of a particular weed ( sin ), in your life. "

And so I pull, sweat, tug and wrestle with my weeds ( sins ), that can often overwhelm me with their deep , endless roots.

I also have very positive thoughts and feelings in my garden, especially concerning hope and patience. God shows me to sloooowww down, and wait for something good ( a new flower or first buds ) to appear. He also teaches me to have hope that my creativity will ' appear ' in my garden.

All of this, the beauty of birds, bees, butterflies, flowers and plants, the smell of dirt and leaves and trees and the outdoors...all of it , the whole shebang of a garden...make me consider Who created it all, out of nothing.
Being inside ...I cannot feel what I feel in a garden, outside working.

Lastly, 

I enjoy working on my garden, and my relationship with God...as I see if I neglect my garden...it will not thrive. If I forget it, forget to care for it, forget to check on it...then it will wither and die. Just like my relationship with God, or people that I love or care about. So He teaches me to tend to what I want to thrive...and dig deep and relentlessly for things ( sins ), that need to be out of my life.

When I do that, when I get rid of the ' weeds ' in my life, it leaves room for the more beautiful ' flowers' or habits or blessings, to grow.
The things He wants us to see, to nurture.

Down in your garden, looking at the intricacies of a flower, a buzzing bee, stopping and looking up at the sky and feeling the warmth of the sun...all of it and much more...MUCH more, make me hear God in my garden.

I have no idea if this makes any sense...but it is a smidgen of how I feel He speaks to me in my garden.

Many blessings to you,
Gina


" The LORD GOD planted a garden eastward into Eden , and there He put man whom He had formed. " Genesis 2: 8