The Garden of Life
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and the tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”
—Genesis 3:6 (NKJV)
Will our gardens be of life or of death? Our garden and what we choose to do with it, all starts with Eve. The devil took advantage of her curiosity. Her curiosity bloomed into desire and from this desire, something happened. Sin. What followed ultimately was death. Despite all that she was given, she wanted the “wisdom” that she thought eating the forbidden fruit would have given her. She was very sorely deceived. She defiled her garden of life and it was all because she let her guard down, allowed an intruder in, and from there many weeds started to take root within her heart. Although she had access to the Creator of the universe, had the ability of being able to walk by His side and share with Him her innermost struggles and heart, she decided to neglect it. She decided not to give her wilting garden the water it so desperately needed. In turn, her garden was completely destroyed by her own hands. It desiccated as the weeds of neglect choked the life out of the precious roots of her blooming flowers and other abundantly lush plant life. The intruder laughed in the face of this despair, as Eve and her husband Adam were forced to leave behind their once beautiful and living garden of life to the defilement of death itself.
“But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”
—James 1:14-15 (NKJV)
Eve was drawn away by her own curiosities and desires, and in turn was enticed by the intruder, the devil who posed himself as a serpent. Ultimately, all this led to the demise of the perfect garden of life that God had given to her and Adam. Eve had a weakness, one she neglected to see. She personally had a seed of ungratefulness in her heart, all that she had was simply not enough. She wanted “more”. To her unknowing, this would lead to the demise of not only her happiness, but her husband’s and the rest of the world.
If false joys become our focus, we WILL lose what we hold most dear. Chasing after other “supposed” happinesses are responsible for the death of the sources that provide us the real and true joys of our lives.
But how do we do this? How can we avoid the same downfall as Eve? We need to avoid distractions, beware and be aware of our weaknesses AT ALL TIMES. Every one of us has a weakness to something, and the distractions that will feed our particular weaknesses WILL always follow close behind if we allow them to. We must always be wary of the fact that what we sow in our lives, we also will reap in return. Eve sowed ungratefulness and in return reaped a bounty full of corruption and loss as a result. What she had was not enough for her, therefore she lost everything she had to begin with in the end.
“For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”
—Galatians 6:8 (NKJV)
By allowing the worldly seeds of distraction to be thrown into the soil of our minds and hearts, we end up growing the weeds that will hinder us from fulfilling our true purposes that God has called us to. These purposes can be: Being a good wife, a good mother, a hard worker and provider, giving to others, loving and praying for others, fulfilling a calling on your heart that God has placed, and the list goes on. These true purposes that are fulfilled are the roots of the beauty we see spring forth in our gardens. The worldly distractions and our weaknesses are the weeds that choke the roots of the beauties of our gardens out.
Our God-given purposes will not withstand our own wrong choices. If we choose to neglect what we need in order to move forward in something, we will never move forward, and can in fact move in the opposite direction of where we were destined to go.
Eve chose wrong, and God allowed her to. But, if we instead allow God to lead us in our choices and purposes in life, His Spirit in us will manifest a special growth from those purposes, those roots. Our plants will yield gorgeous flowers and succulent fruits in return. We will start to see the true beauty of what God intended for us growing in our lives.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”
—Galatians 5:22-23 (NKJV)
I want you to picture what your garden looks like right now. Are there healthy blooming flowers, green leaves and fruit? Are weeds lurking underneath the foliage, just waiting to choke the life out of them? Is there a weakness of your’s that the intruder is just waiting to use against you in order to gain access to your beloved garden? Do not give the enemy an open door through the gates of your sacred garden!
The devil will take advantage of any weaknesses that we have or use any distractions necessary in order to derail us from the path which God has set for us.
Whether it’s fear, anger, pride, an addiction or even a person or friendship you currently have, the intruder WILL use them to dethrone us from our highest callings and purposes and our gardens will begin to rot. Protecting our gardens is essential for us to do every single day because our enemy is vigilant.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”
—1 Peter 5:8 (NKJV)
Our gardens are a battleground. Just as our enemy is vigilant, so also are our weeds, they always come back when pulled out. Sometimes they will come back in larger numbers, in different spots or even in different varieties! It is a constant fight to keep the intruders and weeds out of our gardens. But in order to properly fight, we need the proper armor.
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
—Ephesians 6:11-12 (NKJV)
If we put on this holy armor, we WILL be protected from all the enemy’s tactics, plots and weapons. We will prevail and have victory every day and be able to dance upon the sacred soil of our gardens because we know we are strong in Jesus’ name!
So, we have pulled the weeds, we chased out the intruders and we are watchful for more to come, but what’s next? Eve allowed her weaknesses and the distractions that came as a result to make her forget to do one important thing for her garden. Water!! Jesus promised that those who are thirsty may come to Him and never thirst again! We can fight all we want to, but we must also nourish ourselves with the right things in order to keep strong or we will fail.
“...but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
—John 4:14 (NKJV)
We all have our “temporary fixes” when we are stressed or have had a long day or week. Some of us go out with our friends. Others sit with their significant other, binge on ice cream and catch up on their favorite tv series. Some sleep and sleep some more! Although there’s really nothing wrong with any of the things that I mentioned, too much isn’t good for anybody. The problem in our society is that we get so easily stuck in our cycles. Cycles of habit. These regular habits of our’s can actually turn into bad ones, if we decide not to pay close attention. The things mentioned above can satisfy us temporarily, but we need the one thing that satisfies us eternally, and that is a relationship with Jesus. Those of us that have a relationship with Him need to realize that its not just a one time “I’m saved” moment and then we resort to our old habits and go through our regular motions of life. This relationship is indeed above all else, and therefore, should be placed above all else in our lives. In Deuteronomy chapter 22, we are taught that if we mix two different kinds of seeds and throw them into the soil, our harvest will be defiled.
“You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled.”
—Deuteronomy 22:9 (NKJV)
What we can glean from this message is that we cannot mix God and the world together.
We cannot fulfill what we are called by God to do if we also walk with the world and give into its pleasures and desires at the same time.
Our gardens will be defiled by our short-term “joys”, whether they are sinful or not if we do not give ourselves at the same time the living water we so desperately need. If we are Christians, there is indeed nothing we can do that will make God take away our salvation or change the way He looks at us (John 10:28-29, Colossians 1:22), but we CAN do damage to the blessings, purposes and beauty that God has given us if we decide to neglect the importance of putting Him first in our everyday lives. The truth is, because we all currently remain in our mortal bodies, we will never not sin (Romans 3:23). If we are good in one area of our lives, we will fail in another (Romans 7:14-25). Imperfection is what it means to be human, it is why we needed redemption through the blood of Jesus.
We CAN do our best to make sure we are giving special time to spend with our Lord every single day. Whether we resort to sinful habits and fixes or just innocent and good fun, we need to do our best every day to give God the time He deserves in our lives.
In turn, we will see how strong we really are and that we don’t need those other “temporary waters” (sinful or not) that we feel will fulfill us. Giving God our time will finally quench what we have been thirsting after, our plants will be nourished, our gardens will grow lush like never before. We will be eternally satisfied and therefore able to fight the good fight everyday within our gardens and keep them full of life!
Keeping Your Garden Full Of Life
Making sure your garden is safely guarded is a daily chore, one we must all make a priority.
Below you will find the necessary steps to take, in order that your garden can be one of life:
Identify your weaknesses and prevent the seeds of distraction from sprouting (Jer 17:9)
Weed out the distractions that are already growing (Galatians 5:16-17)
Stay alert and vigilant, resist the intruder (James 4:7)
Spend time in prayer and in God’s Word everyday, strengthen and nourish your garden with living water (Isaiah 58:11)
“The Lord will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought
And strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail”
—Isaiah 58:11 (NKJV)
You are “more than” the weeds that threaten to take over the peace and tranquility of your garden. Let Jesus be your Living Water and may you be quenched today and forever!
Written by Emily Engelhart