One of the outcomes of being home for several weeks and not traveling, is the time I can spend in around the garden. I love gardening and trying to set up a look that flows from one season to another. I also like to have some vegetable garden. In the past I’ve grown tomatoes, potatoes, onions, squash, zucchini, beans, peas and carrots.

There is something soothing for me, in digging in the earth. As a corps officer I would often build a bit of gardening into my sermon prep by doing my reading early in the week and then putting my pen down and going outside to weed, plant, see and feel the soil while I thought about what I had read and asking the LORD to speak into my thinking.

It is interesting to me that the Bible begins and ends in a garden.

From Genesis 2:8,9

” ⁸ Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹ The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.”

And from Revelation 22: 1-5

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. ⁴ They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵ There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”

So doesn’t it make sense that God loves a garden? When we first moved into this house I went to work on a garden. In those early weeks our next door neighbour, Raj, leaned over the fence and said to me “God will bless your garden”. Yes I think he has, and in doing so He has blessed me.