Story of Two Gardens

March 29, 2023

The first garden was filled with the glory of new creation. The Garden of Eden was a place of overwhelming beauty, intimacy, and love.  Here two humans enjoyed cherished, unrestricted fellowship with God.  Unfortunately, this divine intimacy was broken when Adam and Eve decided they wanted to do their own will and chose to disobey God.  What began as life, harmony, and splendor ended in banishment and death. But God immediately put a plan into effect to bring humanity back into intimate fellowship with Him.  This plan leads us to the second garden.
 
The beauty of the second garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, is encapsulated in the human form of Jesus Christ.  The intimacy and love are not just between humans and their Creator, but between Father and Son.  The temptation for disobedience had to be more than we can imagine.  Because he was divine Jesus had the power not to go forward with God’s plan of redemption, but He chose to submit Himself to His Father’s will and He resolutely choose obedience and the way of the cross.  His choice to say, “Not my will, but your will be done,” brought life, forgiveness, redemption, freedom and hope to an alienated and broken humanity.
 
As I think about those two gardens, I ask myself (and you), “In which garden am I choosing to live?”  Am I in the garden of “my will be done” or have I chosen to fully submit in the garden of “your will be done.”  Am I able to totally relinquish my rights, hopes, dreams, agendas, doubts, insecurities, pain, fears, and sorrow?  Am I able to say, “Your will be done,” and actually live that out or do I take back parts of my life to handle myself?  My heart-felt prayer for all of us is that as we grow spiritually, we will spend more and more time in the garden of “your will be done.” 
 
Prayer: “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”  (Psalm 143:10) Amen.