Like A Garden

When I lived in Texas, we tried our best to keep a flower garden out back on our patio.  The landscape seemed braced for the scorching heat that would surge past 100 when the sun reached its full height. The live oaks were covered with dust and looked tired.  I watered the flowers:  bachelor buttons, petunias, chrysanthemums, marigolds and periwinkles.   I kept a watering pot handy, and often left it filled the day before so I would remember to do this.  If I missed a few days, the plants showed it.  They become stressed, and, if neglected too long their leaves shriveled and the flowers began to fall from the drooping stems.  They withered and died.

 Flowers don’t respond well to alternate periods of drought and drenching.  Drowning them in water once a week simply doesn’t work.  They need watering every day, not necessarily a lot, just enough to keep the soil damp.  Watered frequently in this fashion they thrive, even in record setting triple digit weather.

 This may explain why American Christianity seems so insipid, (like salt that has lost its taste).  Many Christians depend on a deluge of spiritual watering for one hour once a week during a worship service at church.  And many more don’t even do this. The spiritual lives of many Christians may resemble the stressed-out flowers sitting on my patio in the heat of summer.

 For many years I have made it a practice of having a time of devotion early in the morning.  I like to spend this time outside, preferably at sunrise. There have been gaps when I missed.  The demands of the day were pressing, and I was unwilling to get up early enough for this discipline.   I have discovered that when I spend time for personal study of Scripture, prayer and reflection on what God wants to say to me, the day seems to go better.  My life has a healthier center and, when the day is done, it seems to be more productive. 

 David expressed this truth in Psalm 1. “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.  But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers”

 Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life,” (John 4:14).  “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost” (Rev 21:6).

 All of us need a little water every day, especially when the stress of life is most scorching. We all need a daily time alone with God, a quiet place to seek His presence and His promises in prayer.

Bill Tinsley's book We Beheld His Glory is free as an eBook on Amazon on July 4. Download a copy.  Tell a friend.