It is not things that our God wants. He wants us. (Micah 6:8) BKT
THE above was in the closing of the last comment. I recall many years ago when my boys were still rather young, talking to a pastor about parenting and my own insecurities regarding fatherhood, when he said to me, remember, it is not things that you can give them that they really want, what they really want is you. I don’t know how well I’ve succeeded at fulfilling that wisdom, but it does mirror the relationship reality of God’s desire for His own; and when you think of it, it works in the other direction as well in our desire for God, or at least ought too. Which brings me back to where I left off regarding “gardens that just don’t happen.”
GOING back to my childhood days, and those memories of mayhem and merry madness in those neighborhood vacant lots, it saddens me to know that today’s children just can’t enjoy that same kind of freedom and adventure that those times allowed the youth of my day. We’ve a corner of our school playground that is just plain dirt, and some of the little ones just seem to naturally gravitate to it, and I well know why.
FROM the memories of my past, it also saddens me when I realize that most of today’s youth often aren’t allowed to “enjoy” what went on, on the other side of the walls and fences that divided those vacant lots, where individuals worked to reclaim these little wildernesses’ and turned empty properties into houses and homes to raise families and build lives. In my case I remember the directing hand and watchful eye of my mother as we moved dirt, planted fruit trees, vines, flowers, grass, arranging rocks and borders, building arbors and patios, and oh yes – fought endless battles with weeds and other intrusive pests.
OVER the years as I grew up, I also watched those vacant lots we played in be transformed into similar homes and businesses. Truck loads of lumber erecting skeletal structures that grew with skin of brick and mortar, shingles, and stucco – great fun to explore when the construction workers left for the day or weekend. Wondrous scrapes of wood and other discarded material we kids could scavenge and build “stuff” with in our backyards. But when all was done and swept clean, there was that moment of quiet anticipation as the new residence awaited the finishing touch, the life bearing new residents that would bring their own expression to what it meant to build a home and family, plant their gardens and build their lives. It took a process, because it is a process to turn a barren vacant lot, with all its inherent and latent energy laying within its foundation, into a home with a welcome mat that shares love and build lives that endure storms and hardship, learning and growing through seasons of change and challenges.
I SEE this as a metaphor of how God does things. Read the opening chapters of Genesis and see how He prepares for the first family, and how that first family and every family ever since gives witness to the eternal (Eph. 5:25ff). Gardens just don’t happen.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Phil. 2:12-13
SO with that said, here is another consideration from Miles Stanford, None But the Hungry Heart.
1-18. DEVELOPED GIFT
“But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and keep you from evil” (2 Thessalonians 3:3).
Though we receive our faith from Him, it must be developed in us by Him. Undeveloped faith never progresses beyond the babe-in-Christ, milk-of-the-Word stage. “But solid food is for adults that is, for those who through constant practice have their spiritual faculties carefully trained to distinguish good from evil. “Therefore leaving elementary instruction about the Christ, let us advance to mature manhood” (Hebrews 5:14-6:1, Weymouth).
“You will never learn faith in comfortable surroundings. God gives us promises in a quiet hour; He seals our covenants with great and gracious words. Then He steps back and waits while we believe; then He lets the tempter come, and the test seems to contradict all that He has spoken. It is then that faith wins its crown. Then is the time to look into His face and say, ‘I believe, Lord, that it shall be done as it was told me.'”
“Without trials of faith we should all be ruined. These trials give us opportunities of linking on to the mighty promises of God and finding through the trials come blessing that wonderfully glorifies Him, or else, missing God, turns the blessing into a burden that fills the heart with weariness and pain.” -G.W.
“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:11).
