The innermost garden

Sometimes I have the impression our hearts are like little gardens. We come into the world with soil - which may be more fertile or less - empty, waiting, waiting to become something, for something to grow in them. 

During the first few years, our basic structure of morals and values is planted by our families and those closest to us - they tell us what they think should or should not be in this garden. They can help us plant good things, destroy ivy and parasites that may come in, or sometimes - intentionally or not - they can do the opposite: killing out good things that begin to grow, or failing to assist us in taking away whatever destructiveness may begin to grow. With time, we begin to care for our own garden as we see fit according to our opinions, to what we are taught, to what we learn. We usually tend to put ourselves in the centre of the garden and do as we please around it. 

The thing about Christianity, is that it has a great deal of pulling out some things that have roots very strongly attached to our hearts - and that is a very discouraging process. When we invite God into our lives we think that he will be a gardner that will do the usual pulling out of ivies, put fresh earth and nutrition for all that is there, and we very often imagine we can decide which flowers or trees stay there and just tell him what we want and he'll do it. 

Therefore, when he first walks in and we see tree after tree being pulled out, put somewhere else, flowers and roots being mercilessly plucked, we find our hearts to be somewhat a desolate and miserable scenery.  We are no longer in the centre.
Our passions, our objectives, our needs and our wants are many times relocated. We are no longer the centre, neither are any of those things. Some things have to be removed and burned all together - others must only be put in a different way so as to not take over. We are not to spend much time attending one thing or another may die, we must be attentive and careful with every virtue and blessing, every passion and piece of life and beauty our garden has been presented with - but never allowing it to overthrow the heart or the spirit. It must serve its purpose in the entire organic composition being made, but it must be tamed.

“Purity does not mean crushing the instincts but having the instincts as servants and not the master of the spirit.”
― Eric Liddell

The thing is, he does not do this on his own and just starts overturning everything - he asks for us not only to allow him do this, but he asks for our participation in doing this. Now, here is where the gardening is somewhat different than one might imagine an employed gardener: it is more like a father gardening with his child. We can't really do much to assist in the process, but we do participate and little by little he goes teaching us what things can stay, what things can go and -nearly as important as that - is where in our lives they can stay. 

Our reason for being in the garden is no longer to serve ourselves, but to spend time with him learning what to do and how to do it. Little by little, the chaos of parasites and ivy gives way to a flourishing system bursting with beauty and life. We begin to learn to listen rather than speak, and we learn to place priorities in our lives in a way to thrive with life rather than be controlled by anything. One thing interacts to sustain the other. 

That does not take away the difficulty, and it is not a steadily increasing beauty. It is difficult, and it needs work done in it all the time - or before you know it other unwanted little plants will become unwanted large plants sucking life out of all that has already grown there. It is not something instant and magical either, it requires steady work and many times the effort put into it will only be seen after many years of patience and persistence - but it is well worth it. 

In the end, it is not well worth it because of the garden itself - though it does have its beauty, and the way it sustains life is wonderfully blessing for all birds and bees, everyone and everything surrounding - it ends up being only a natural consequence from the time spent with the Father learning and growing. In the end, it was not about our lives, our desires, or what we did: it was about Him, and being near him and learning to submit to what he desired. It was about learning that beauty has it's place: in surrounding Him, and not as an end in itself.