Our Heart, the garden…

Our life becomes a harvest of the seeds we plant and what we allow to grow in our hearts. The biblical picture of this started in the Garden of Eden and many Theologians and Hebrew scholars believe the Hebrew word for Eden means pleasure. This biblical story paints a wonderful picture showing us what happens when we eat the deadly fruit of “distorted” belief. Despite what is often taught, the deadly fruit was not an apple, pomegranate or an avocado. The picture is about the distorted lie Adam and Eve were told and believed. The lie sunk deep in there guts after they had chewed on and heard something about them that was not true. After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of “good and evil” they immediately were engulfed in guilt and shame. This lie that they believed caused them to think they had disappointed God, and out of fear they attempted to hide from God. But like any loving parent He found them and attempted to comfort them. God was not mad at Eve or Adam. They hadn’t messed up so badly that He wanted nothing to do with them and they certainly didn’t need to confess or repent for God to still love them and want to be their father. The love God had for them did not waver.

“Life and death is in the power of the tongue and we eat the words that we speak.” -Proverbs 18:21 The deception Adam and Eve experienced came from a distorted image of themselves which was told to them by someone else. They believed the lie and because they did, they felt like they needed to do something to be more like God. The separation started in their minds and then was planted in their hearts. The truth is, there is nothing they could have done to be more like God. They were created, male and female, in His image and likeness. This act, caused by a distorted belief, did not disappoint God and did not cut them off from His unwavering love and admiration that He always had for them. God still wanted to be with them, He still wanted to talk to them, and He still wanted to lavish them with His love.

Even while they were immersed in guilt and shame, God pursued them and attempted to comfort them by wrapping them up in blankets, just like we do when someone close to us isn’t feeling well. We do the best we can to comfort them.

The seeds we plant and allow to be planted in our hearts shape the outcome of our lives. There are also some seeds that were placed in our hearts during our formative years that had a cause and effect reaction in us. Any thing negative from those events is not our fault. Seeds from fear, shame and guilt will be strangled out when we continue to plant the truth of who we truly are, and who we have always been.

What if we began to treat our hearts and minds like a garden? Tending to the soil, cultivating the seeds and experiencing the great harvest? We all have had seeds of untruth planted in our lives by others and we have watered them and tended to them because we didn’t know how loved we were and how extremely fond of us God is.

The Spirit speaks to us in our hearts and in out minds. She echoes the voices of the Father and our Husband Jesus. “You are a masterpiece. You are really liked and you are loved. You are beautiful. You are brilliant. You are a victor. You are royalty. You are perfect just the way you are. You are……”

I love the scene from the movie “The Shack” where Mack was with the Spirit and he noticed how wrecked, twisted, and full of weeds the garden was. I love the image it showed of “our” hearts. We can tend to our hearts and water them with the truth of who we have always been. We can water our hearts with words of life and pull out weeds that have roots so deep we thought they could never be removed. We can rest in the Son and cultivate the seeds of hope, life and love. We can fertilize them by who we allow to speak into our life. We don’t have to continue to be beaten up by allowing the distortions of other people to have the power to tend to our Garden. We don’t need to chew on any fruit that tells us anything other than how perfect we are, and how much God loves and adores us.

When we allow people that speak life, truth, and love into us, we will be amazed by how the roots dry up and new life begins to come into harvest in our lives. Kurt and I have experienced this first hand. Our live’s have been turned 180 degrees from what they were even 5 years ago. Every year the truth of who we are begins to produce more and more fruit in our lives. And is the result of eating from words of the truth of how wonderful we were created, how much we are loved, and how worthy we are for great things. The more we have planted seeds of truth, and weeded our hearts from distorted belief’s and teachings the more we have began to live in a life of abundance. The more life we experience, we tend to our hearts with more caution guarding our hearts and staying clear of any distorted seeds falling into our paths. These seeds we began planting and cultivating years ago, have started to bloom.

Life and death are in the power of the tongue. All of us will eat the harvest of what we speak or what we allow others to speak into our lives. Belief comes from hearing just how wonderfully you were made…full of love, and out of love! You were born without the fear of failure, without anxiety, without a worry in the world. This truth is because you knew that they (the trinity) had your back. This is still the truth today. You can accomplish whatever your heart desires. Nothing is impossible, nothing can change who you are and how wonderfully you were made. This is good news, and this is the Gospel!

In love,

Katy & Kurt