Why does the “Garden” matter? What does this analogy help us to grasp? For starters, this image helps us see there is an order to the way God works. He invites us to operate within his order, and that’s something our ego wrestles with; we struggle to believe that his way is better than ours. Why would we want to do surrender control of our own lives? We’ve got our own plans and systems established. We know what we want and we know how we plan to get there. We’ve read the books, studied the mentors, followed the leaders. We have figure out the ways of the world we are living in. How would it be any other way?
The thing is, the world can only lead us so far. There comes a point in many of our lives where we realize how heavy a burden it is to carry your own plans and systems. There are limitations in our human strength and eventually. it runs out.
Fortunately there is a place to go— someone to run to.
“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
The Garden helps us see there is an order to things, but it is very different than the way the world will tell you. In this structure, you begin everything by first seeking the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of you. This painting illustrates the layers of this divine order. It helps me to have a visual, especially when my eyes struggle to see this way being exemplified I the world around me. Now, when I find myself swirling in confusion or overwhelmed by the pressure that I have let myself take on, I simply recall that I am walking around in those outer spheres before I have spent time in the inner circle. We begin every day in the inner Garden. I try to make every decision, especially the big ones, in the Garden, before venturing out. That concentration of color and light is the center from which I build the rest of my life. The Garden is where we meet with the Father— one to one. It’s where we experience the God of Psalm 23— the restoration of his tender care. And once I’ve gone low and slow there in the garden; once I’ve been restored, healed, prepared and filled to over flowing, then I am ready to go out and make my way through in the world.
The Garden matters because we live in a world that sets a different example. A figurative visuals like The Garden reminds us how it all begin, and how we are still designed to walk with God into every area of life. He is not compartmentalized into Sundays, and he isn’t sprinkled on top of the other days of the week to keep Christians on brand. Rather, we are invited to begin with him— to be fully seen and known and tended in the Garden of presence before we head out into this wild world and its upside down and backwards ways.
For more in depth study on Why the Garden Matters, listen to the podcast episode. (Apple Podcasts and Spotify)
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