Gardener of Love

“My Father is the gardener.”

(John 15:1)

Reflection:
I do love Spring! The birds start singing earlier each morning. The weather warms up. New growth appears on trees and shrubs. The daffodils, snowdrops and primulas are a symphony of glorious and majestic colour. And then the blossom! It seems that almost overnight old, gnarled and naked trees are covered with gentle, pure and fragrant flowers! New life is bursting out all around us.

I pause in awe and drink in the wonder and beauty of it all. And I cannot help but thank and praise God for His glorious creation and the way He reveals Himself and speaks to us in and through it.

He always reminds me that just as He brings out new life and beauty from the most unlikely looking trees so He can and does do it in the crown of His creation – you and me. No one is too old and weather-beaten, sinful and broken, faded and lifeless or deformed. The life and beauty that He brings to us is not like the external and fragile baubles on a Christmas tree. They are instead seeds of loveliness that He plants within us, nourishes and causes to bloom in pure and fragrant beauty.

As we turn to His Son whose scarred hands reach out to us so by His Spirit He enters into us – into those dark, lost, dry and lonely places. The new and Living Water begins to flow and new life begins. And, as the Father did for the Lost Son when he returned, He wishes to clothe us with the very best that is available – even His own special robe of glorious life.

Response:
Wherever and however you are pause for a moment. Thank God for His creative love for you. Ask Him to set it free within you in new ways.

Prayer:

Father You love me so much. Please help me to open myself to Your love without reservation or fear. Please cleanse and heal me, and raise up the beauty and fruit that You have prepared. Amen.

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