"Lord, Why a Garden??"
"Pray for what to pray, before you pray for what you pray!"
These words from Pastor Goia were ringing in my ears. I shut my eyes tight in the early chill of the morning, "Lord, what do YOU want me to pray for?"
The answer came slowly "Pray for San Bernardino."
I peeked open one eye.... "San Bernardino, Lord?? I barely know anyone in San Bernardino." Well, I guess that is the problem... I thought to myself.
If you are unfamiliar with San Bernardino, it is a city in Southern California, my neighboring city, and let's just say it's a city that could use prayer.
I felt a deeper answer: "Pray for people, people who are hurting, and bound by restlessness. Pray for the ones who feel like they are barely surviving, tossed around in the dark and stormy sea of life, feeling that peace is far from them. Pray to loose the bonds of wickedness." I shut my eyes even tighter. I prayed harder. I imagined individuals: mothers, fathers, children, teens, lost young adults, leaders, and people having to enforce the law. I did this for weeks. I started to weep many times while I prayed and I didn't know why.
Over the next weeks and months, I felt God saying, "I want San Bernardino. I want you to go to San Bernardino. And then.... I want you to put a garden there."
Wait.... What now??? Hold on Lord, I can pray for the city, but You know I have no business starting a garden! My family, rightly so, has labeled me "The Black Thumb"! Literally every plant that comes to me dies!! In all of my adult life I've never even kept a garden. I don't know the first thing about keeping a plant alive, much less a whole garden!
I thought, "Surely I'm just imagining this." This thought is just a passing thought I must have come up with. I had read about gardens in my morning devotion. I laughed it off! Phew, for sure this is not from God.
But, the urge that God wanted a garden in San Bernardino kept coming back. It kept coming back to my mind when I prayed, when I studied the Bible, when I surfed the web and even when I was lost in thought.
Slowly, begrudgingly I was coming to the realization that this IS exactly what He wanted. His point was becoming clearer. Gardens are a reflection of God's love and care, a place where people can heal, a place where object lessons abound, a place where patience and dependence on God are developed.
Over and over the next few months, God kept leading me to Isaiah 58:
"3 Wherefore have we fasted, (I said), and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge...
5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
10 ...And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:
11 And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
12 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
Not only did He want a garden, He showed me in these verses the purpose of such a place, what it means to bring the kingdom of heaven here, now, to those around us.
Have you ever tested God? Fleecing God as Gideon did? God, is this really from you? Please show me a sign. Well, I asked for two...
The first time, I asked, "If it's really a garden You are asking me to plant, please help me keep one plant alive!" We had recently bought an olive tree. Really, it's more of just an olive branch from Magnolia Market. "Ollie" as my youngest son calls it. I prayed, "God if this is what you want from me please keep this one alive.... It's all on you, because, well, you know... I can't do anything to it to keep it alive, but YOU can." I tell you, it's survived 2 years so far! It loses it leaves and they come back in the spring! Honestly, every time I look at it I think of this miracle!
The second sign I asked for was to send me the right people. Send me the people You want me to work with who have You in their heart, who have the same desire to see Your kingdom flourish here on earth. And my, God is true to His promises, He has opened the floodgates and I am so blessed to be a small part of His plan.
Oliver "Ollie"