God's Wisdom In A Nutshell

Hello,

Today I’d like to give you an analogy that will hopefully help you understand why reading the Bible is beneficial to our life here on earth and our future life in eternity. This is my little story…

Perhaps you take an evening walk every night. The path is a familiar one that leads you past tall skinny row houses with gardens in front of the homes and bigger gardens in the backyard. One particular house has always drawn your attention. You can only see through the beautiful iron gate that opens into the garden, since the remainder of the iron fence is lined with six foot tall perfectly manicured hedges. What you do see through the waist high iron gate, is beautiful- if only you could see more!

Tonight you also notice an older gentleman in the garden pruning and tending to his flowers. He must have sensed you coming because he stopped what he was doing to offer you a warm and welcoming smile. This particular night you decide to stop and say hello. The man smiles as you walk up and you notice that he is as meticulously manicured as his garden, and seems gentile and kind. You make the conversation brief because you are busy and have emails and work to get home to. The visit was pleasant however, and you decide to stop by more often to see the older gentleman.

Each night as you walk past the row houses, you peer through the iron gate to say hello to the gentle and kind gardener. The five minute conversations tend to focus on pruning the garden to encourage larger blooms and more beauty.  He tells you that his garden requires much work but it is well worth it because it provides him with peace and happiness- if only you had the time to create a garden as beautiful.  The daily five minute conversations turn into half hour conversations and later into hour long conversations. Your work at home seems less important because you are finding peace and tranquility talking to this father figure and you enjoy entering the garden gate to have a closer look at his creation.  After several months of speaking with one another, the older gentleman asks you to help him in some way or another. It’s not difficult work and you are pleased to do it since he has revealed to you so much wisdom.

As the early spring drifts into summer harvest, the older gentleman asks you to assist him again. You notice that the garden plants are bearing much fruit from his meticulous care and you never leave empty handed. He is generous with his gifts. He gives fruit from his trees, vegetables from his garden or a starter of plant for you take, so that you too have fruit to share with others.  This friendship is growing deeper and you appreciate the kind and gentle words of wisdom this gentleman offers you.  The gardener has seen your sincere interest and therefore has trusted you enough to bring you into his coveted backyard garden, telling you that only a few people have seen it. He wanted you to experience even greater joy and peace through observing the waterfalls, ponds, walking paths and contemplative benches. You feel so honored to have been given the opportunity to experience this and you find that a day is not complete without your visit.

Then one day when you walk past you see someone else in the garden – they seem to be ushering you over. The authorities standing there have handed you the deed to the property -the man had died. The gardener left all that he owned, to you.

The letter enclosed with the deed stated that the gardener loved you like a child. He was creating his garden for you the whole time, and worked tirelessly over the years to make it just the way you would like it. He was glad that you stopped by on your walks so that he could learn what you needed in life and with this knowledge, he could help you. He knew you worked hard, therefore he created a peaceful waterfall for you to relax after a hard day.  He placed the bench in the backyard as a place to sit and admire the beauty of life that you rarely take in while putting in fifty hour work weeks.  He desired to know you and you to know him, in order that you could find happiness in his creation and rest for your soul.  He was grateful that you continued to stop by each night on your walks because he knew he had the perfect solution to your every need. The home and garden he created was better than anything you could have made or even thought up yourself. You were so at peace when you moved in, that you didn’t miss the life that you had in your prior home.

The man’s death was a tragedy for many reasons but also because he died while working in the garden-your garden. He worked tirelessly, day in day out year after year, not for him- but for  you! You realized that the help you offered the elder gentleman was nothing to speak of compared to the peace, contentment and joy he had given to you. You were happy to have spent time with the kind man but regret not spending more time in his presence. He was so gentle, so loving and so generous toward you. If only…

Yes, the meticulously dressed gardener is the Lord Jesus Christ. And like the old man in the story, He has wisdom, gifts and serenity to offer us. God’s desire is to spend time with us because this is the only way that we can learn from Him and receive His peace and His refreshment to carry out our lives here on earth. If we follow His advice and allow Him to prune away anything extraneous in our lives, including overwork, we will find that years later our lives will look like a well watered and tended garden- fruitful,  beautiful and peaceful. It will take time on our part to sit with the Lord and let Him speak to us through the Holy Spirit, but the time we give to God will prove to be the turning point of our lives. And like the gardener, God will not reveal His profound truths and generosity until we show great interest. His gifts are precious and they are given only to those that seek Him wholeheartedly. The Lord will know our sincerety when we do things that He asks us to do- even when the task is difficult or heart wrenching and encroaches on our selfish nature. But no matter what we do for God, the reward we receive is abundantly beyond what it took from us.

I encourage you to bring a cup of coffee or tea to your favorite reading chair, and open the gardening book of life-the Holy Bible.

“The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”(Is 58:11)

Have a wonderful and peaceful week,

Lisa