In the Garden

I finally got out into the garden the other day for the first time this year. Though I didn't do much or stay long it felt so good just to be out there; a mini-victory over the long grip of winter and a celebration of better things to come.
I love gardening. As therapy for the soul it has no equal; it slows me down and helps me reconnect with the realities of the human condition that get lost so often in our hectic digital lives. The garden reminds me that I'm dependent on nature and on God. I can't control them; I have to humble myself and work with them. Whenever I watch a seed grow I'm reminded that it is not me that performs the miracle, all I do is plant what God has given me and stand back in awe. The weather, the seasons, rain and frost and sunshine all show me my true place in the divine order of things and I'm glad that they do. It's a sense of humility and worship that is becoming increasingly lost in our atheistic generation, and the further we stray from things that show us who we really are the more soul-sick we become.
I thank God, literally, for my garden; though it's not much to look at and probably wouldn't impress you if you saw it. But for me, it's an encounter with the divine. Genesis records that one of the first things God did was to plant a garden, and it was there that "Adam walked with God in the cool of the day". If you're a gardener, open your heart to the lessons all around you and you too can walk with God. It might surprise you to find that He's been in your garden all along.