Gardens - Emma Davis
Having struggled with significant health issues for many years, the image of new life in Isaiah 51:3 has been one I have carried about with me.
‘The Lord will comfort Zion, He will comfort her waste places, He will make her wilderness like Eden, Her desert like the garden of the Lord…’
However, more recent ponderings have deepened my understanding of it in fresh, more practical ways.
Gardens in the ancient Middle East weren’t only designed for the pleasure of walking amidst fragrant blooms on a spring day. At least, that’s what comes to mind when I hear the word ‘garden’. In this case however, a garden was an enclosed plot of ground where food was cultivated, whether fruit, vegetable, or herb. Its wall, usually stone, provided safety, being places of order, peace, and abundance. Wilderness is dangerous, with neither boundaries, nor sustenance. It is untameable, barren, and unable to support life. Upon meditation, I realised this promise runs deeper than God generally beautifying ugliness, healing hurts, or bringing life out of death, true and delightful as
these works are to Him. I saw that God’s overarching work ever since the beginning, is bringing peace into chaos. Inside its boundaries the garden is lovingly tended by the gardener who knows the best place for each seedling. He is able to bring peace, order and good fruit. The garden can not do this by itself. This speaks to the everyday disorder, anxiety and barrenness of self centredness as much as to general human suffering. Its application is as broad, specific, extreme or common as any complicated, messy human experience. So not only can I say, ‘Lord, heal my hurts’, but also ‘Lord, guard my mind with your peace that my thoughts, relationships, and circumstances may be fruitful.’ Yet gardening requires patience. Growth can seem painfully slow, but when the Lord is the gardener everything is brought to maturity at the proper time. He loves to make all things new. I need only ask.
Emma Davis
