Your Garden of Grace

Make me walk by Your side, soak in Your light

Let Your life-giving river quench my parched soul

To grow here in Your Garden, Your Garden of Grace

The seeds of Your truth planted in time

Watered by many through years that go by

Though I didn’t always seek Your Son-light

The light of Your grace was always shining on me

How You’ve been faithful, dear Lord to fertilize and grow

In my sin I allowed the weeds to cover Your truth

Yet Your mercy brought rain again to this dry soil

The soil of my heart has been always tended by You

True Vine, Master Gardner, Savior and Friend

How lovingly You’ve kept Your garden that’s my heart

As I reflect on all the seasons of my life, both storms and bright days

You’ve skillfully crafted this plot You’ve created

With Jesus as my sun and Your Word as my rain

My faith grows so slowly and yet just at Your perfect pace

Prevent me from hindering the tilling You must do

Make this clay moldable and ready for Your use

Make me walk by Your side, soak in Your light

Let Your life-giving river quench my parched soul

To grow here in Your Garden, Your Garden of Grace

The Lord has taught me much about this concept of His garden of grace in my heart. One interesting concept I’ve thought of is that fertilizer comes from waste…that waste is putrid and filthy, though it contains some of the best nutrients for rich soil, which yields a bigger and more beautiful harvest. The “fertilizer” of life will look different from time to time (heartache, financial pressures, ministry woes, strained relationships)—but in the hand of our Master Gardner, all will be used to make the soil of my heart that which produces more beautifully, and closer to His design. This won’t happen overnight, just like a garden doesn’t grow the day after the seeds are planted. Sometimes the soil lays dormant for a while—because maybe the soil of my heart needs to be burned so that it will be able to grow things again. Often I let weeds of impatience and jealously and worrying crop up in my garden—and this requires the Master Gardner to pull the weeds. Not fun, but oh so necessary for His long-term garden design. Though I have only a view of the soil and the earth, our God sees the whole garden, as perfect as He made it to be, because He sees His garden of grace in the soil of my heart through the light of His Son. May we be patient as the Gardner gently and graciously cares for the gardens of His grace growing in our hearts.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vine dresser…Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me…If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” John 15:1, 4, 7 NIV