Hello
One of the joys of walking to work includes the opportunity to see God at work in the little things. I believe that I mentioned the rose bushes before, but again they called to me as spring began testing the soil in Geneva. Again I was struck by the gardener.
There he was, gingerly making his way between the bushes, dressed in heavy duty waders. The morning hadn’t quite decided whether it was balmy or not, but he was ready. Armed with shears, he painstakingly bent over his rose bushes – which were hard thorns on beaches, no sign of softness. With gloved hands, he reached out to snip dead branches, remove aphids and spray either insecticide or fertilizer as needed.
He attended to each bush individually; snipping, cleaning and spraying each one as needed. I wondered how he knew what to look for and marveled at his patience with evidently back-breaking work. I immediately heard today’s Holy Nougat echoing in my mind:
““I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener.” John 15:1 NLT
For me tho, each of us was a rose bush at the end of winter. We’re each covered with our share of dead branches and aphids. And our hard, thorny exterior would challenge many gardeners.
But as The Gardener-Creator, God WILLINGLY negotiates the thorny hardness of our brokenness to get to the core issues – the almost invisible aphid-like sins which often seem harmless until our whole self is infected and infested.
The metaphor went a little deeper; for I saw in the insecticide, God’s Spirit, landing invisibly yet protectively over us before and after infection. I also remembered that having been pruned and sprayed at this juncture, the roses are more pliable and bloom more beautifully in a few weeks. And so it it with us – that tender pruning of Our Gardener softens us and we produce better fruits.
If you are going through a dry unfruitful season, perhaps it’s the opportunity to yield to the ministrations of the Master Gardener – it just might be what we truly need!
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In and for Christ’s love
