I would like us to take a moment and consider our lives as a Garden. Our heart being the soil and that a tree is planted in the middle of our garden and that it’s busy growing. The tree is surrounded with other plants – some flourishing and others perhaps not looking that good, perhaps in need of some water!
The reason why I’m thinking of a garden and not just a tree or a vineyard is because we all have areas in our lives that might look beautiful on the outside, we look good in the eyes of the world but what is God saying/seeing? What is it that is growing in our garden and what is really needed?
I wonder if you’ve ever read the book: “The Oak inside the Acorn” by Max Lucado
To summarise it:
There’s a mummy oak tree with lots of acorns hanging on her. One particular acorn is quite scared to fall of one day but one by one his brothers and sisters grow old enough to leave the Oak and to reassure them that they will be ok, the mummy would tell them “Within you is a great Oak. Just be the tree God made you to be”
Eventually the acorn falls off and finds himself in Orange grove and when he eventually grows into a little tree, the farmer digs him out and plant him near the Farm house in the garden… where he would be alone between the flowers but there would be no other trees near him.
As many, many years go by confused by the fact that he’s not producing oranges like all the trees he’s seeing, he came to realise what his purpose in life was.
What is it that I’m planting in the middle of my heart? Do we realise where we came from, who made us and what potential we have inside of us. I honestly believe that IF we can only be mindful of our purpose, every day, to live a life that can display HIS splendour and do it for HIS glory that we would think twice before we plant anything in the soil of our garden.
Recently my little girl did a project at school and it was all about the process of a flowering plant so I thought to bring that process in, comparing my life to a garden.
Over the next few days I would like to stand still at each of these first 3 steps. Of course we want to move on and eventually look at the steps that would follow them: Flowering, Fertilisation & Pollination and then Seed Formation but for now, let’s prepare the soil of our heart so that tomorrow, we can come back and look at the SEEDS we sow into our hearts on a daily basis.