Enter the gardener. Jesus’ identity was mistaken by Mary at the tomb. She thought he was the gardener, until He opened her eyes to see Him for who He really was. And in a very real way, He is our gardener. Jesus alone comes in, and if we allow Him, He cultivates, prunes, feeds, waters, and even dead-heads the garden of our lives.
Think of someone you know who when problems come reacts in such a manner that shows the gardener at work. Perhaps he is wrongly accused. Anger seeps in at the injustice of it all. Then he is proven to be guiltless, and the matter is cleared. The choices are rather well defined. Either the anger continues to dominate that person, robbing him of important energy and fuel, or anger is dead-headed, clipped out, and allowed to die.
Maybe anger isn’t the blossom that needs to be pruned. Maybe desire has blossomed in your garden. Maybe you desire the same type of success your co-workers enjoy in their positions. They continue to move up the ladder, while you remain on the bottom rung. Never mind how they are advancing up that ladder, be it good or bad. You only see the possibilities that continue to pass you by. Desire gives way to envy and the blossom begins to wither.
Desire can be a good thing. Finding a goal and setting a dream into motion are positive ambitions that God honors. The Bible is full of examples of people who dreamed big, and God blessed them. Envy, however, is not something your Father wants for you. Envy is destructive. Envy is a dying blossom that is robbing you of the water and food you need for other blossoms.
But just as my flowers can’t dead-head themselves, neither can we dead-head our blossoms turned bad. The Gardener must come and clip away the bad so that the good might live.
How’s your garden today? Are you blooming with lively colors and fresh new buds that promise the loveliness and beauty you crave? Or are you full of dead flowers that need to be cut out? Maybe you aren’t even aware of the way those old blossoms are stealing the potential for new growth. Maybe you’ve been wondering why your spiritual life is going nowhere: no growth, no beauty of Christ. My guess is that you need some dead-heading.
Jesus is ready to help. He’s standing by with the shears. He knows exactly which are the good blooms and which are weeds. He knows what is dead and dying, and what is robbing you of your joy and strength. Don’t be afraid to let him tend the garden of your life. He’s a loving Master Gardener. He grew you this far, trust Him to grow you the rest of the way.
Angry because of false accusation?
Clip.
Feeling vengeful because of a family member’s injustice?
Clip.
Turning Jesus loose to work in your garden can only be beneficial. Do you feel it? Do you feel the love and peace flowing up as the decay is trimmed away? Ah, you have a new bloom—you’re showing new life! The Master Gardener is at work. He’s pruning you, dead-heading the bad and nurturing the good. Here comes the living water!
“Grow, little ones!” he calls out. “Grow!”
10
Faith in the Light
The other day as darkness set in and the skies passed from a turquoise blue into that lovely shade of midnight navy, I sat staring at the light switch. There was still enough light to see the switch—the room was gray and shady, but not yet pitch black. I wondered. . . . Would the light come on when I flipped the switch?
Maybe it wouldn’t. I only assumed it would. After all, I know nothing about what makes a light switch work. It stands to reason that I really should know how it all comes together in order to access it. I mean, are there wires that connect to thingamabobs? Are there little creatures who run along some magical line to bring that all-inspiring electricity to my lamp? How was it created?
If I don’t know how it works, will it still work?
Silly as this may sound, we often deal with faith in God in the same manner. Darkness sets in, and we need light, but we’re afraid to go to the source. What if God isn’t there? What if He doesn’t respond this time? After all, I don’t know how God works or why. I wasn’t there when He laid the foundations of the earth. I haven’t a clue if He sends tiny messengers along some divine prayer line to bring power to my life.
I’ve heard so many arguments about faith. How can you believe in something you can’t see? How can you believe that God will really work? How can you believe there is a God out there—that He listens, that He cares?
Now, I could give you all sorts of flowery statements. Things like “I can’t see the wind, but I see the effects of the wind.” But in Kansas, I have seen the wind. It’s pretty visible. Some say Kansas means “people of the south wind.” Others joke that the only reason we have any soil at all is because it blew up from Oklahoma. Then there are those mighty F-scale tornadoes. Wind in all its ugly glory. I’ve seen the wind, so that analogy to faith isn’t the all-in-all for me.
I could say, “Well, look to the Bible for examples of faith.” Moses had faith. I would too if I heard God talking to me from a burning bush or if He led me with a pillar of fire. I always found it hard to understand why people around Jesus had such a hard time seeing Him. I’m sorry, but you raise somebody from the dead, and I’m going to be pretty persuaded that you have something unique and special going on.
But even so, I suppose for me, rather than answer the questions “How can I believe that God will really work?” or “How can I believe God is out there?” I have to ask, “What’s the alternative?”
If I fail to believe that God is who He says He is, that He will do what He says He will do, then what are my other choices? That I’m my own God? That there is no God?
I suppose we could put our faith in money; after all, it’s tangible. We can see money, and we definitely know the effect it has on the world. Money talks, and people listen. But tangible doesn’t last; money loses its value as economies bounce up and down. What’s here today is often gone tomorrow with a single plunge of the stock market. I often remember the story of a post-Civil War widow whose husband had buried a trunk full of Confederate money for them to use after the war. She ended up papering the walls with the valueless stuff.
Along with money, we could put our faith in things. Big houses and nice cars, pantries full of food, and closets full of clothes. Or we could put our faith in jobs and careers. We could pour ourselves into being and doing until we drop one day from the exhaustion of it all.
Maybe we should put our faith in people. We can see people. We can talk to people, and they talk back in very audible ways. We can ask people advice and direction, and they will no doubt give their opinions and suggestions. But people fail. People are fallible. They are often misinformed or influenced by the wrong things. They are sometimes motivated by personal need and serve ulterior motives.
So what’s the alternative to putting our faith in God?
I think of the disciples and the daily walk they had with Jesus. As they went about their business, Jesus performed miracles and talked of the days to come. He healed the sick and raised the dead. He made banquets out of loaves and fishes, and He cast out demons. The disciples must have been amazed at Jesus’ performance. The people who were around Jesus must have been in awe. How could they not believe? How could they not have faith in Jesus as Messiah after He called Lazarus out of the grave?
But their faith was weak, even nonexistent at times. After all, no one was sitting outside the tomb on the third day. No one expected to see Jesus again. If they’d had faith that He was who He said He was—if they’d had faith in what He said He would do, they would have been standing there waiting for Jesus to emerge from the tomb. Banners waving, new clothes for the King, a feast to celebrate.
Wouldn’t you?
Should it have been any different than you or I dropping off a friend at the airport and being told, “I’ll be back in three days”? Would you come back to pick up your friend or would you go hide and fret that he was gone and never coming home again?
Their faith was weak. Our faith is weak too. We stand at the light switch of prayer, wondering, “Will He really hear me?” “Will
He really care?” “Is God really there?”
We fret and fuss. We hide away. And we are lost in much ado about nothing—the nothing being our absent faith.
Can you come up with an alternative to trusting in God?
Can you come up with a plan that successfully skirts the need to have faith in Jesus Christ as God’s only Son, who died to bring us into right relationship with the Father?
I can’t. I can’t find it by putting my faith in money or time or people or things. I can’t write it off as being unimportant, because frankly, the only thing that gets me through the day is believing that God is who He says He is.
Oh sure, sometimes I stand at the light switch and turn it on and off over and over, just to make sure God is still there. I see the coming darkness, and I run for the lamp. I sit in the brightness of day and leave the light on—just in case. I bask in the overwhelming hope that if I stay close to the Source of light, I’ll never be in darkness again.
Faith isn’t all that tricky. It isn’t risky unless you consider giving up worry a risk. What’s risky, in my estimation, is having no faith at all. Sitting in the darkness because you’re sure the light won’t come on—that this is somehow your lot in life. Cursing the darkness because you don’t feel you have the right to go to the Source of light. Crying in the darkness, believing you’re all alone, that light doesn’t exist—at least not for you.
But the Light is there for you!
Faith is a confidence that the light is going to come on. Faith is daring to believe God is God and that He wants to light your way, that He hears you when you call, no matter how many times you flick the switch.
Because, believe it or not, God doesn’t want to leave you in the dark. He loves you and wants to shine the light of His glory around you, on you, through you.
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you,” says Isaiah (60:1). Have faith that these words are true. It doesn’t take big faith, just little baby faith—faith that once put into practice will grow and grow and grow. It’s up to you. Look at that verse again. There is action required of you.
Arise.
11
Bare Bones
I found myself at an event called a “Bare Bones Viewing.” A society of historians had purchased the home of a famous fellow, and it was their intention to set the house back to its original order. The bare bones event was scheduled to earn money and to bring in local interest, and it did just that.
The house was a stately affair from the outside, but as you drew closer you could see the wear and tear of a century. Multiple coats of paint weren’t wearing well, and the use and abuse of multiple owners had taken a big toll.
Inside, the house was in a state of disrepair. They were in the process of tearing down walls and ceilings. As I wandered through the gracious old lady with all her scars and modern additions, I thought of us as children of the ages. We were just like that old house.
The world has added a wall here or there to our hearts. Philosophies and problems have brought down the ceiling and closed off unneeded bays and cubbyholes. Sorrow has chipped away at our paint and cracked our windows.
I think of the woman who cried her tears on Jesus’ feet. Or the woman at the well whose life Jesus knew all about. Or even the adulterous woman who stood ready to be stoned, until Jesus’ mercy stepped in.
Time had not been kind to these ladies. They bore the wear and tear of the ages, of a society who no longer valued them. Oh, they had started out pristine and lovely. There was great potential for their future. So what happened?
What always happens? Life got in the way.
Without warning, the paint began to chip away, and the pipes began to rust. The stairway railing was broken when someone ignorantly crashed against it. Someone carelessly broke a window or a heart, and never worried about its repair.
Maybe you know someone like that now. I do. I know many people who are in this state of disrepair, but one young woman stands out in my mind more than the others. She’s worn and tired. She’s mother to four children all under the age of eight. She’s alone in the world, her husband having left her for another woman. Daily I see her go through her paces, a bit frayed at the edges, her structure suffering from time and abuse, her interior broken and rendered in pieces.
She must have been quite pretty in her youth, which hasn’t been that long ago in days or years, but in experience she has reached beyond decades. She’s one of the forgotten ones. One of the many who is merely struggling to exist, to survive the onslaught of time and the people who will come and go in her life. She isn’t really living—she’s enduring.
Like that old house. No one cared for it, at least not in a way that honored its original purpose: to be a home. It had been offices to government officials and for other businesses. It had even been lived in by other people, people who really didn’t value it for the place it had once been.
The same was true for this young woman, and for those women I mentioned from the Bible. They were all used by other people for other purposes. They weren’t valued for their original existence. God had created them for one reason, but life used them for another.
But the story doesn’t end here. The bare bones viewing was designed to show the “before” condition in order to better appreciate the “after.” Because the people who bought this house have every intention of restoring it to its original grandeur and beauty. The people who redeemed this structure from the broken-down office building that it had become have great plans for its future.
Jesus had great plans for those women in the Bible. He saw the bare bones. He saw the tragedy of careless years—the abuse of a society that had forgotten the value of human life. Jesus has great plans for the woman who lives in my neighborhood, and He has great plans for you.
Maybe you’re the broken one. Maybe you’ve been used by a cruel world whose intentions were never to honor your original purpose. Maybe you feel hopelessly torn apart. Maybe the debris is stacked too high for any hope that someone can clear it all away and restore order.
Perhaps you know someone who has been ravaged and devastated by life. Someone who has fallen into a rut or a pit of despair. Someone who doesn’t have the strength to get back up—or the heart to care anymore.
What if we as individuals or churches or neighborhoods started creating our own societies of restoration? What if we saw these broken-down people and brought them to the only one who can redeem them? The only one who can restore them to their original beauty and purpose?
The second chapter of Mark talks about the man who was lowered to Jesus on a mat. He had no way to bring himself before the Lord, so his friends did the job for him. Couldn’t we do that for each other? Couldn’t we reach outside our comfort zone just a little to care about the broken people in our lives?
Oh, I know what you might be thinking: They’ve brought this on themselves. They’ll just get down again. A person has to care about herself first before she can get help. What if they just turn around and dig themselves back into the same hole?
Jesus didn’t ask the man on the mat if he was crippled by his own hand. He didn’t ask the man if he would go on to be a productive citizen. When the woman cried on Jesus’ feet and dried her tears with her hair, He didn’t suggest that while she was forgiven, she would have to show Him a clean record for a year before she could be blessed by Him.
Why do we worry so much about whether or not a hurting, damaged soul “deserves” our help, rather than simply offer the help?
Aren’t you glad God doesn’t have a roster of requirements for us to meet before He’s willing to deal with us? Oh sure, we have to repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness in order to be forgiven, but I have yet to see examples of God refusing to welcome home the prodigal. Jesus did imply that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Him.
It wasn’t just a catch phrase or a bit of propaganda. Jesus was showing us the very heart and nature of who He was—who He is, and who He w
ants us to be.
You know, under the grubby, well-worn carpet at that house, soon to be a museum, I was told they found a beautiful hardwood floor. There are great plans to strip away the old carpet and polish the wood. There is potential for this house that many people have overlooked.
There is potential for the broken, tragic strangers in our lives. The strangers many people overlook.
Why not open your eyes to the possibilities and get out a mat? Grab a friend, maybe two, and help a soul in need to find the healing that Jesus offers. You just might find a beautiful heart underneath that grubby, well-worn façade. You just might offer hope to a dying soul that the world has long ignored.
Whatever you do for the least of these . . .
12
Is Your Christianity Showing?
I think the saddest and worst thing anyone ever said to me was “Oh, I didn’t know you were a Christian.” I remember the moment like it was yesterday. I was eighteen and newly employed for a national company. I felt very grown up and very important. This was a real job, with a real paycheck and even a parking place. I thought I had landed on top.
After being there for two or three weeks, we were all gathered in the break area discussing our weekend. One lady had gone boating and sported a new tan. Another had taken her children to the zoo. When it came my turn to speak, I just shrugged and said, “Oh, I didn’t do much. I went to church yesterday, but that was about it.” That was when one of my co-workers turned to me with sincere surprise and said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were a Christian.”
At the time, I didn’t think a lot about it. I passed it off with some trivial talk about how I’d gone to church most of my life and that I had accepted Christ at an early age. Nothing much more was said, because our time was up, and we all headed back to our cubicles. But not long after that, I began to feel a nagging in my spirit.
Eyes of the Heart, The: Seeing God's Hand in the Everyday Moments of Life Page 5
