Power of Prayer

Psalm 37:23-24 The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand.

This morning is a quiet, albeit wet, time of refreshing after the storm. And what a storm it was! I do not know how the rest of the neighborhood fared but my house and that of my friend, Candace, sustained some damage. Hers was more substantial. Both households are safe and that is the important thing.

The storm winds were vicious here on Hacienda Hill. The sound alone was incredible and mysterious sounds of things slamming into and along the front of my house kept my attention for the duration of the first assault. I could not even imagine what was causing those odd noises. I symbolically kissed my treasured tomato plant on the front deck goodbye!

The pups were not happy at all till we snuggled in bed to ride it out. Once there, an eerie lull carpeted the house and I thought it was over. I was wrong; Phase Two was yet to come. As the Storm-Part One started I prayed over my house, household, neighborhood and those affected. I rebuked damaging winds and hail. I welcomed the life-giving rain in prayer, as well. I called out to Jesus when things got more sever. By the time Part Two came around, I was as covered in prayer as I could get by those who love me. I just turned off the lamp and went to sleep.

This morning I made a wet walking tour to look for damage. From my vantage point on the deck I could see the porch swing on the A-frame was blown over. That swing sat in that location for most of the years I’ve lived here and I’ve never seen that happen. Yet, there was my fragile tomato plant still holding on to all of its fruit, even the heavy ripe one! I was stunned. How it did not get torn apart in that crazy wind can only be explained one way…it was in the hand of God. 

I pray over my food plants every day. It may sound silly, but every day I tell them how blessed and beautiful they are and how they will provide food for my table. I tell them God gave them to me and how He blesses me by blessing them. It is common knowledge in my mother’s family of how my Grandpa Compton could push a stick into the ground, pray over it and it would live, grow and thrive. Gardening runs in my blood and I pay attention to the important things. I pray over my plants!

 
This day finds me safe and happy because the power of prayer and my Lord protection of me and my household. There is no better place to be than in the hands of God!

Growing Season

John 15:1-10 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.”

My backyard gardening has been downsized for the season. I wasn’t able to get my raised bed ready this past fall for spring planting so, to make the best of it, I decided to let it go fallow this season. Apparently the weeds didn’t get the memo; they are thriving in abundance where squash should be!

I could not just let this time go by without growing something so I settled on a patio tomato plant on the front deck. It is caged and tied up in a corner of the deck where it is protected from some of the 23 hours of daylight savings sun but nothing can protect it from the wind. Typically, my tomato bed has been in the back alongside the house where it had maximum wind protection. This year my lone plant is either going to make it or not against the wind. The Pro’s for the deck site are that I haven’t had any issues with insects (said in a whisper so they do not hear) and, surprisingly, none from birds. My deck is level with the tree tops nearby so the tomatoes are eye level for the birds. The Con’s…well, the wind. There isn’t any protection from it at all on the deck.

 
I said all that to say this, my little tomato plant looks pitiful. She has tomatoes and they are getting bigger everyday but the actual plant shows the wear and tear of life on the deck. I think we can take a lesson from that plant. I, too, often feel beat-up by the harsh winds of life and circumstance. We all go through our seasons of adversity and, like summer heat in Texas; some of those seasons seem to drag on forever! Yet, for every withered and broken branch, new growth is sprouting from the joint at the vine and good fruit is maturing. New tiny tomatoes can be found showing promise for the future. Life goes on in its determined desire for survival against the odds. That tomato is only doing what plants do; it is blooming where it is planted and bearing good fruit. 

That’s the lesson…we, too, can stand up to our circumstances, beaten though we may be, to grow and bear good fruit because and only because we are the branches, Jesus our Vine and God the Gardener. Happy Growing Season to us all.

Pullin Up the Roots

I had a revelation yesterday about yet another area of rebellion in my life. Yes, this is beyond my previously confessed rebellion of going IN the EXIT door and OUT the ENTRANCE door. It’s another I can actually share in a public forum……

One of the things I do to relax is surf Craigslist. It’s a mindless activity that I utilize after serous brain commitment. My most frequent locations to scroll through are furniture for sale by owner, pets, (building) materials, farm & garden and recreational vehicles. I am a woman of diverse interests if nothing else!

No, I am not looking for another pet. Four hounds and seven outdoor cats is enough. Although, I do plan to finally get the Corgi puppy I have longed for over the years as a reward to myself when my Great American Novel is published. Needless to say, the hounds are not sweating having to share the evening lap space in the near future. ***sigh***

I digress, back to the rebellion revelation……

It is actually on Craigslist I became aware of this particular rebellion. You see, one of the entertaining elements for me is reading the seller’s description headlines meant to capture your attention and entice you to view the item. The more elaborate the description, the more hearty the laugh. Let’s just say beauty really is in the eye of the beholder… or seller, in this case. Whew, what were they thinking when they bought that?! But the rebellion comes into play when the ad title says, “Must See!”….I will not look at that ad for anything. I’m serious, I will NOT be told I “MUST SEE” and do it. For me, it turns from “MUST SEE” to WE’LL SEE ABOUT THAT!  Geeze……….

I have to laugh at this silliness because it certainly keeps me from taking myself too seriously. It’s hard to feel all pulled together and, to use a more modern colloquialism, “all that and a bag of chips” (whatever that means) when you recognize the petty, fleshly flaws that rear an ugly head from time to time. Rebelling against an ad on Craigslist is not a sin of rebellion against God but the scary part lies beyond any form of silliness; it shows me there is a root of rebellion in me and I must constantly stand guard against it.   

At various moments and in different ways, the ‘natural man’ in all of us surfaces, and being a bit rebellious seems deceptively alluring, attractive, and harmless. We feel independent, another dangerous situation which accompanies our rebellious streak. We don’t want anyone controlling our lives and telling us what to do. We pick and choose which standards we wish to disobey and to what degree we will disobey them—a little or a lot. We’re defiant, and we know it, and we’re proud of it. We pat ourselves on the back for bending or breaking the rules just a little and getting away with it. We quiet our consciences with self-satisfying rationalizations, and we justify our unseemly behavior as benign. But is any form of disobedience or measure of rebellion safe and harmless?

Defiance, rationalization, and justification expose our human frailties. Soon, we are submitting to our will over the will of God. Safe rebellion is a lie. We cannot stand by while the lie of safe rebellion grows in the soil of self-deception until it takes over. If I’ve learned anything in the years of gardening it is that weeds and undesirables need to be pulled out by the roots. Snapping them off at the surface only makes for stronger roots that multiple the undesirables.

I doubt God cares if I look at the “MUST SEE” ads or not but I do know He cares a great deal about whether or not I am rooted in rebellion. So this is me, donning my spiritual gardening gloves, taking up arms against rebellion in my life when God reveals the area in which it is planted. Weeds never take a day off.

Master Gardener

For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. ~ Isaiah 61:11(NKJV)

When joy and happiness walk hand in hand, it’s a party in your heart! Our Master Gardener, God, knew this and used the concept of planting, sowing, growing, and harvesting all over the Scripture we read in The Bible. I love the scripture above, both as a believer and a gardener. I get great joy, that internal spiritual dance, when I think of all God has allowed to grow inside me as His child and as a gardener that is thrilled by the sight of tiny shoots coming up from the earth my hands have worked. I’m telling you, there is nothing you can buy that feels better than that!

I know how I feel when I see the labor of my hands, sweat and dedication bursting forth new life and a harvest to nourish my family. My guess is that every seed of the Word of God that sprouts in the lives of His people gives God the same feeling…on much more grand and godly scale, of course. That’s when joy and happiness walk hand in hand.

There is much work involved to prepare the soil and that is just the beginning. Daily plucking out of weeds that would suck the very life out of the plants, stealing their water and nutrients is a never ending task. No matter how many you pull one day, the next morning there are that many and more to do all over again. Every morning I do a garden inspection. I examine every section, looking for pests trying to devour my tender young plants. I carefully watch for the new growth and celebrate each new shoot straining its tiny head out seeking the sun. I stand over the bed and spray life-giving water by hand so I can make sure each individual variety gets just as much as it needs. When the beginning of fruit starts to show, I celebrate all over again! The vibrant reds of little radishes poking out of the soil thrill me. The ½” long squash are reason to dance. There is nothing as satisfying to a gardener as seeing his garden-child bear fruit. No wonder there is praise in heaven all the time! The Master Gardener is reapng a harvest of love.

We were commanded by Jesus to take the Gospel to Jesus to every nation and creature. We are to sow the seed of The Word across the world – no gloves required. The harvest will be magnificent and abundant. Let the harvest day of Thanksgiving begin and kick the party off right!

The Necessity of Pruning

     Here is the first of the garden analogy devotionals of the year…you knew they couldn’t be far away.

     I was working on the area that is to be my new Japanese Tea Garden yesterday morning. This is a labor of love toward making a 9 year old dream come true for a private, serene ‘secret garden’ of my own for prayer, meditation and the gracious practice of the tea ceremony. At this point in the game, it is all foundational work of taming the unruly vegetation into the base for the vision that lives in my head, heart and now committed to paper…well, computer screen anyway.

     I was pruning the four Yaupon trees for clearance to walk under and to eliminate the sucker branches. As I stretched up to cut limbs over my head, the usual Holy Tap on the shoulder came and I felt the Lord asking, “Do you see the analogy in this?” “Yes, Sir, I do.”

     Pruning serves several purposes: it is used to help shape the tree, to cut away any damage that could be a danger, and to remove any diseased unhealthy areas. Sounds very familiar to the pruning the Lord does in our lives, doesn’t it. Pruning is not a ‘one time and you’re done’ project. It is required maintenance on an ‘as needed’ basis in both our lives and trees.

     There were a few dead branches in all four trees- areas of our lives that no longer work to edify, uplift and encourage growth. Those had to go! I could not help but recall scripture talking about Jesus cursing the fig tree that did not bear fruit. It was common to destroy trees that were not bearing good fruit to make way for those that did. Water was (is) a valuable resource and was not wasted on those not producing what was good and beneficial. "Dead" areas in our lives must be cut away, too, if we are to grow in healthy fruit of the spirit.

     Cutting away the little sucker branches is an ongoing process, too. They drain the tree of energy and strength needed for the canopy branches and fruit. We have little suckers in our lives, too. Bad habits take our time and resources and people that drain our energies with negativity. If removed when small, it is easy to pluck them out without much issue. Wait until they are larger and the work required becomes greater. All the while, they are draining and taking from the tree…err, our lives and well being. Pruning, Friends, may be painful but avoiding it only makes the need to cut deeper.

Blooming Where We are Planted

2 Corinthians 10:12b but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

     An ancient legend tells of a king who walked into his garden one day to find almost everything withered and dying. After speaking to an oak near the gate, the king learned that he was troubled because he was not tall and beautiful like the pine. The pine overheard their conversation and added that she, too, was upset, for she could not bear delicious fruit like the pear tree. The pear tree heard his name and began to complain that he did not have the lovely odor of the spruce. And so it went throughout the entire garden.

     Near the very edge of the garden grew a little daisy. As the king approached, he noticed her bright little face, full of life. “Well, little flower,” said the monarch, “I’m glad to find that there is at least one happy face in my garden.”

     “Oh king,” she said, “I know I’m little, and not many people notice me, but one day I realized that you if planted me here, you must have had a good reason. So, your majesty, I’ve determined to be the best little flower I can be!”

     Who among us has not, at one point or another, compared ourselves to something we admired in someone else and found ourselves lacking? When I was in high school, my aunt used to send my mother the clothes my older cousin didn’t need any longer for me. My cousin was tall, long body and long legs. I was short, possessing neither long body nor legs. I could not wear her clothes unless my mother took them apart and remade them for my smaller body. My cousin was also beautiful, had awesome blond hair and was a teen model for a large department store. To me, it looked like she had it all and I got the hand-me-downs. You can imagine what that did to a teen girl already struggling to survive in a critically dysfunctional home. I felt I didn’t measure up.

     This wasn’t my cousin’s fault, she had no idea I felt this way. As adults, we have discussed this. I was surprised to learn her mom always compared her to her younger sister and she felt she was the odd duck that didn’t measure up.

     If you are determined to compare yourself to others, you can easily find someone prettier, smarter, richer, more educated, sweeter, more talented in something you always wanted to do but can’t, funnier and more ‘successful’ by worldly standards.

     We must come to a place where we trust that God has a reason for creating us the way He has and has planted us in just the place he desired. Not one of us is greater than the next. Comparing ourselves with one another will only make us wither. When we become satisfied in His creation (that is us), that’s when we’ll find true happiness... and we will shine like the little daisy in the story above.

    A garden is not defined by one plant alone but by the complexity and beauty the variety of specimens contribute and the love and nurturing care the gardener uses to oversee the garden. Let’s give God our all our disappointments and be determined to be the best that we can be for Him! He’s the Master Gardener; let’s grow where He planted us into what He created us to be.