The Blessings of a Garden

By Deborah Cosylion

Isaiah 58: 11 – 14
The Lord will guide you always; you will be a well-watered garden like a spring whose waters never fail, then you will find your Joy in the Lord. (The Lord will satisfy your desires even in scorched places)

We often hear promises like Isaiah 58 and others and wonder how we can balance these verses during all the struggles and sufferings we are experiencing.

To find answers let’s look at the best example, The Garden of Gethsemane. I call this the Garden of Agony. In order to experience the blessings of a garden we must all experience the Garden of Agony repeatedly in our life until we go to be with the Lord. Here, Jesus experienced great agony, distress, anguish. Yet in the Garden of Agony (Gethsemane), Jesus learned submission to His Father’s will. There was no conflict between His Father and Himself. Jesus asked His Father, “If it be possible take this cup from me and if it’s not possible for this to be taken from me, may your will be done.”

A natural garden takes a lot of work, tilling the ground, adding soil supplements, taking out the weeds in order to make it healthy for plants to grow healthy. If we don’t till the ground we create a fallow ground - what we plant may grow but it doesn’t mature or bear healthy results. The maintenance of a garden must be done over and over in order to continually bear healthy mature fruit. It’s work!

Likewise, in the spiritual realm, we must maintain the ground of our heart! Weeding out our sins and attitudes that keep us from bearing fruit and suffocate the fullness of joy God has for us. Our problems, struggles and life hurts put us in the garden of agony. It’s our reflections during this agony that helps us look at it as a blessing.

I wonder why God chose The Garden of Gethsemane. It was north of Jerusalem in the Kidron Valley and all the cities would send their trash to the Garden. It was filled 70 – 80 feet high with trash.  Jesus was off in some corner with a few Olive trees and flowers praying. Could it be it’s a reminder that we can come to the Father in prayer anytime with all our “garbage” issues, struggles, pains, hurts, etc.? What ultimately happened was Jesus learned the will of the Father and he entrusted himself to His Father’s plan for his life, a surrendered life, a fruitful life. All His pain was not as significant as learning His Father’s plan and will.

In the midst of our Garden of Agony we can experience the blessings of a garden by entrusting ourselves to the Father and learn the sweetness, the sovereignty, the love and greatness of who God is in the midst of our struggles. Our pain becomes less significant compared to the greatness of knowing God. It is there we experience the blessings of a garden.