Keeping A Heart Garden: A Daily God Attitude
Keeping a heart garden
means having a daily God attitude.
There’s a garden where Jesus is waiting.
That can be your cultivated heart.
My brush swooshed back and forth
back and forth
laying fresh paint on an old building
situated on the main street of a small town.
The sun shone and a small breeze stirred the leaves of nearby branches.
I heard the bubbling and gurgling of water.
I looked around and noticed a lovely small park across the street.
Perennial bushes and bright flowers,
shaded paths and groomed green grass,
and the center feature, a beautiful stone fountain.
The Garden
The quiet beauty of the little park made me think of a favorite hymn.
”
There’s a garden where Jesus is waiting
tis the beautiful garden of prayer.
There my Savior awaits and he opens the gates,
to the beautiful garden of prayer.
The park in this little village has a bank and post office on one side,
and a library on the other.
Across the street is the grocery store, the village office, legion hall and a café.
The little downtown bustled with shoppers hauling sacks of groceries,
shop owners clutching black pouches scurrying into the bank,
and children hunched in backpacks sauntering slowly to the school on the corner.
The park was empty.
Not one of the many on the street that gorgeous morning
had time to pause in the lovely garden
to listen to the bubbling fountain and singing birds.
No one entered the shaded paths to find a quiet spot and marvel at the beauty
someone had provided here for them.
This beautiful village garden
is free. It is easily available. There are no strings attached.
You can walk through it in 3 minutes, or linger for an hour.
Or spend a quiet morning of refreshing beauty.
But no one was there. Not one soul.
The garden where Jesus is waiting
is free. It is easily available. No strings attached.
You can enter for a few moments, linger until your cares are gone,
or you can spend the whole day, pray without ceasing,
keep your thoughts centered with an attitude of meditation.
The garden can dwell in your heart
wherever you are, whatever you are doing.
Jesus is waiting.
All you have to do is enter
stay awhile
and be refreshed.
Like all the others on the village street,
I didn’t have time to put my brush down to spend the morning in the garden.
I’m so thankful Jesus made it possible for us to enter the garden
with our thoughts
and enjoy its beauty wherever we are, whatever we’re doing.
”
Each of us has the opportunity to cultivate the beauty of a daily devotional life. Time spent alone in the Word and prayer each day will bear fruit in our lives as we experience an ever-deepening intimacy with the heavenly Father.
Those who are willing to come apart from the clamor and demands of each day’s activity in order to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to His words will experience an intimacy that most believers will never know. The fruit of that devotion will be manifested in an orderly, peaceful life.
Should you choose to cultivate your heart as a garden of the Lord, you will be blessed and others will be blessed. And it is all, all, all for the Beloved.
“
This post is adapted from a meditation by my son,
Tyson Ensz.
