God's Garden

As for man, his days are like grass;

he flourishes like a flower of the field;

for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more. --Psalm 103:15-16

I have heard many times that we are born to live forever somewhere.  This is usually in the context of a message about salvation.  We will live forever in heaven with the Lord, or, if we reject Him, be confined forever to hell.  It’s true that life does not end with the death of our physical bodies, but it is equally true and certain that we will die, that “…this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Paul may well have had this passage from Psalm 103 and similar ones in mind as he wrote the words of what we think of as the fifteenth chapter of his letter.  A person’s life on this material plane is very much like a flower that grows to blossom and fade.  Some seem to be convinced that is all there is.  Others believe that the resemblance to the flower’s cycle is more metaphorical, that the husk of our bodies contain the seed of something greater than what we see now. 

If you think about it, not all seeds are viable.  As one who saves seeds from various plants like beans, melons, and squash, I find that some seeds don’t germinate at all.  Others produce less than ideal fruit.  One of the problems is often cross-pollination.  Gardeners sometimes do not realize that watermelon, cucumbers and cantaloupe are capable of crossing with one another, or that having different varieties of squash growing together will likely result in less than ideal crops the following season.  Being set out with adequate separation prevents the loss of viability through undesirable crosses.  Perhaps there is a lesson for us. 

What grows from a seed very much depends upon what went into it.  The husk that encases it matters only in that is properly protects the life inside and does not overly hamper its sprouting.  Even though an acorn looks vastly different from a bean, the real difference is not in the outward appearance but the inner living matter.  In us, that is the spirit and the Living Word: 

The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass.  The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever (Isaiah 40:7-8).

It’s not that this life is not important.  I have struggled with that.  What does my life here matter?  If that spiritual seed is going to be healthy, acceptable, and valid, the life I live here has to absorb the power of the Light.  I have to live upon and incorporate the Truth as a plant draws in the elements of vegetative life from the soil, sun, and air, that when the husk of my physical body is sown, the seed will prove to be pure, genuine, and true.

       

A Land of Hills and Valleys

For the land you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated by hand as a vegetable garden. But the land you are entering to possess is a land of mountains and valleys, watered by rain from the sky. It is a land the LORD your God cares for. He is always watching over it from beginning to the end of the year. – Deuteronomy 11:10-12

The land of Goshen where the Israelites had lived probably encompassed the vast delta of the Nile River. There was always water. It is no wonder that the Egyptians viewed the Nile as a god for it must have seemed to them that they drew their very lives from it. They irrigated not just their patches of onions and melons, but their grain fields with its waters.

The time has come for us to move from surviving by our own hand to living by the hand of God. We have been dependent on the world’s system long enough – perhaps too long. It is time to move into our inheritance in the kingdom of God, to possess our own land, living not as tenants but as kings and priests.

The move requires us to leave behind our old comfortable idols. In those days we trusted in what we could see. The river was before us. There was no doubting it. It will not be so in the land to which we are traveling. We will be completely dependent on God’s care and concern. If rain does not fall, we will fail. From day to day we will not see the showers coming. We will need faith.

It is not surprising that the Lord Himself taught us to pray, “Give us today the bread we need for today.” He instructed the Israelites to gather manna only sufficient for today’s meal; do not try to hoard it until tomorrow. Depend on Me.

In the kingdom we are to trust in God alone and to trust Him in the now. Yesterday we were talking about hearing His voice in our moment by moment decisions. That is another facet of this same dependence and trust. The last thing Jesus told the believers before His ascension was not to worry about the times or the seasons. He reiterates what He had told them earlier, that is, to take care of today’s business today and leave tomorrow until it is today. Sow and reap according to His guidance and direction. Do not be swayed by the externals, by voices of fear and despair. Sow your seed in accordance with the seasons of the kingdom.

It may be dry right now, but the eyes of the LORD watch over you and the rains will come. The furrows will be softened, and the dead, dry ground will bring forth in abundance according to the seed we have planted.