Calling All Gardener’s
I was reading a familiar story in
And so I tell you keep on asking, and you
will receive what you are asking for. Keep on seeking, and you will find what
you seek. Keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you...Fathers, if
your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead... (
Have you ever had a garden? Yeah, me neither! But I know people that
have and do, does that count? A “Dab of Daft” means “alleged expert”, that’s
me, alleged expert! Now I am an
expert gardener! Okay, so when you have a garden, you first plant seeds, fully
expecting a “harvest”, I really don’t think anyone would do that much work
without the expectation of a crop!
Then once you plant your seeds, you spend weeks toiling in the garden;
there is fertilizing to do, weed pulling, watering, etc. Whew, makes me want to
have a nice tall glass of ice water just thinking about you people doing that!
Once you plant and toil, you then watch as all your work sprouts up out of the
ground, satisfied that your labor has been rewarded.
Our prayer life is like this garden (that I do!). And from this story in
The “planting of the seeds” are our prayers. But what would happen to
your garden if all you did was plant the seeds? If there were no fertilizing,
weed pulling or watering, would you still get a harvest? There are some things
that can happen with a garden; sometimes the seeds you plant do not sprout when
expected, or sometimes the crop does not look
the way you thought it would, i.e. you got small tomatoes when you thought
you would get large ones. So the gardener will walk away from that section of
the garden that has disappointed them; they will stop toiling there, and go to
the other sections of the garden where they can see the “fruit of their labor”.
And in our prayer life, we sometimes pray once or twice, we don’t “see”
the crop when expected, or it does not look like we thought it would. For seven
years I wanted (and tried) to become a mother, and prayed fervently for
healing, eventually I became the mother of the most beautiful girl in China,
and I have said before; I got what I wanted, it just came wrapped in a
different package, and I was not disappointed with the gift!
And sometimes we pray and do not
see anything happen; anyone who has prayed for a spouse to learn to put the
toilet seat down knows this truth! But just because we don’t see the harvest, doesn’t mean that there
is not something growing under the
soil.
Often, just like in the garden, we walk away from that part of the
garden, and no longer toil in that area of disappointment. But this scripture
is telling you to go back to that part of the garden, get on your knees and
keep toiling until you receive your answer! This scripture is giving you
permission to bombard the gates of heaven with your prayers; be like that five
year old that keeps asking the same question over and over, and next time a
child does that to you, remind yourself that he is in “training” to have shameless persistence in prayer.
But remember, it is a two-fold message; the other part of it is to trust
that the Lord hears your prayer, and loves you enough to answer. Just like you
like to give gifts to your children, so He likes to give you gifts. And when
you receive your answer, do not forget to thank the Father, nothing worse than
when a child gets a gift and does not say thank you!
My grandmother was in her seventies when she said to me with her
southern draw, “Dianne, I would like
nothing more than to have another garden this year, if the good Lord would just
give me strength one more year to have a garden!” She had another garden
that year, and even the year after. It brought her great joy to toil in it, and
she dreaded the thought of her age keeping her from what she loved. I challenge
you to be like granny, count it a blessing to toil in the garden, and keep
toiling with the expectation of a harvest! Now you can tell people that you are
an expert gardener like me, fellow gardeners PLANT!
