Summer Walks with God
He is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning.
Samuel 23:4 (NIV)
See Me
Believe in Me
Walk with Me
Love Me
I AM WHO I AM, your Heavenly Father…A Love that is REAL.
A Love that is weathered.
I can’t believe it is mid-July already. It’s peak time for the summer garden, so I’m outside with my gloves on, cutting shears and bucket in hand. Though we have had a mild summer thus far, it has not slowed down the need for care and nurturing in the garden. There is always a daily checklist of items to address: water flow, food, anti-bug and -mildew remedies, pruning deadheads and on and on.
During my daily chores in the garden, I often find myself lost in time and so very far away from the daily activities of life. Songs of worship and quiet prayer fill my thoughts as I prune and clean different areas of the garden.
We recently replanted an area in our garden that needed some extra care. We worked the ground and toiled the soil. We transplanted some of the gardenias to pots with the hope that they would flourish. But over the summer, one of the gardenias was not doing well. Most of the leaves have fallen off its branches and it looked as though it didn’t have much life left. As I looked at this plant, I was reminded of a devotional story about a garden and how the gardener looks at an opportunity of “growing on the edge” in order to walk in hope in knowing that God is with us and never gives up on us.
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NIV)
These last few weeks, I discovered new growth on the plant and, this weekend, a new bud ready to burst! These signs of potential hope and life are the reminder of just how much God loves us. It is the joy of these discoveries in the garden that shape my perspective with hope rather than despair.
Growing points arrive at different times in our lives. Nature, like our teachers, knows when we are ready for more. What we think may have been a failure, may not have been. Maybe we just needed a little more time to absorb the lesson. When we are bitter, our tree grows bitter. Be gentle and kind, instead. Be comforted in knowing that God never gives up on us.
It’s time to live on the growing edge and walk in hope. What does your tree need in order to grow joy for you through all seasons?
Walk with our Heavenly Father in his garden. Walk with our Heavenly Father in discovery. Know that He is always with us. If we choose to see Him with an open heart, then there is always hope for a renewed life and future.
But if you live in life-union with me and if my words live powerfully within you—then you can ask whatever you desire and it will be done.
When your lives bear abundant fruit, you demonstrate that you are my mature disciples who glorify my Father!
I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. You must continually let my love nourish your hearts.
If you keep my commands, you will live in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands, for I continually live nourished and empowered by his love.
My purpose for telling you these things is so that the joy that I experience will fill your hearts with overflowing gladness!
John 15:7-11 (TPT)
May this inspirational music guide your garden-of-life heart.
