Tag: purpose

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Fridayfootprints – Friday 10th September 2021

The first rose of spring brings with it a reminder of its purpose in the garden.

Created to be strikingly beautiful, wonderfully scented, responsive to pruning and care, the rose becomes the epitome of what blossoms are meant to be, and they should be classified as covid-19 essential workers. There to bring joy and peace and love to all who experience them.

Oh, that we could emulate them!

That we respond to the pruning and care God leads us through and we reward Him with an inner beauty and an air-filled aroma fit to soften the hardest heart and lighten the heaviest of burdens.

Coupled to the sounds of nature and the array of colours that make up the background, creation is an ‘Eden’ available to every soul. It is available on request from the moment we open ourselves to His presence with the sole purpose, that through our actions and words we become an echo of the fragrance of His whispers in the wilderness as we live an es’scent’ ial life in His name.

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#fridayfootprints – Friday 10th April 2020

A glance at the world today shows that many lives are literally ‘hanging on a thread.’

Not just their lives, but also their Faith!

Faith in humanity, faith in political leadership, faith in technology and faith in God. In the absence of faith, fear begins to tighten its hold, squeezing any remaining life out of the globe.

Strange, when today we look at the crucifixion of Christ. His life was also hanging on a thread. That gossamer silk thread for Him would break. Yet, it was a death with a purpose.

For all of us who face death, it will never be ‘death with a purpose’ if we did not have life with a purpose. For Christ it was ordained. It was necessary for us, for our sins and for our salvation.

Without His death we could not have ‘life with a purpose.’ Without His death there was no reason for us to live. To exist, yes, but not to live!

Not only did He have to die, but the inhumanity of the events of the day leading up to His death, should have died with Him.

If we are to live with a purpose, we must know that the same gossamer thread of silk that we hold onto so dearly, must be that His death was not in vain. That the purpose we have, is; to love as He loved, to care as He cared, to teach as He taught, to share as He shared and to forgive as He forgave. 

Our purpose is to be what He wanted us to be – otherwise everything He went through on that fateful Friday was in vain.

We all cry at the foot of His cross. We shout praises for His empty grave. But in between; are we living with a purpose? His shout at the 12th hour, is now but a murmur – a whisper in the wilderness that can only be heard because the world has been forced into quieter times and the noises of the hustle and bustle are stilled.

Listen, He calls you to a life with a purpose!

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#fridayfootprints – Friday 27th December 201-

Gardening is about having faith and being secure in the knowledge that if you do it long enough, and if you plant enough; then through God’s design a miracle happens. After years of fruitless and sterile cones, one of the cycads suddenly produced fertile seed.

With the smallest bit of effort – the simple pressing of the seed into the ground will result in baby plants popping up.

The plants were always beautiful and appreciated, lending a structural element to the garden. But that was not their ultimate purpose. They were there to produce viable seed. To reproduce! To spread! To multiply.

Our relationship with the Master Gardener follows a similar route. For some the journey from seedling to ‘seeder’ is a walk in the park. For others it is a lonely journey fraught with danger and frustration. People looking in at the garden, whilst they may appreciate the beauty, yet still fail to see its significance.

Gardening with God is not just about building a deeper relationship with God and it is more than an internal examination of Faith. It is a process of development until we produce fertile seeds and spread them before the Holy Spirit to be blown where they will find fertile soil. The seeds of salvation – Christ has come to save us – He is born, and through His Grace we may have life everlasting and His eternal love.

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#fridayfootprints – Friday 13th December 2019

Every garden needs a ‘Night Star’. Every gardener too!

                        A reason to believe in a season of Hope.

A beacon of light that shines on the days to come whilst the days of the past are relegated to the shadows.

All the deeds of the year, the energy and sweat that have gone into working under the Master Gardener pale into insignificance with the appearance of the night star. Our bones don’t creak as much, and the muscles suddenly feel more pliant. All because we have sighted the ‘Night Star’ in our garden. Our garden’s own Bethlehem star.

It lights up the night sky with a warm glow that envelopes all who see it. A feeling of knowing that this isn’t the end of a year ‘Gardening with God’ but a sign of the beginning. A new year is just around the corner. A new birth for the garden. New dreams to be dreamed, new paths to be laid, eager for the advent of new footsteps.

Every garden should have its own ‘Night Star’. Its own reason for hope, its own joyful surrender to a future in the hands of the Master Gardener. Its own excitement at the birth of a new life.

A life and a purpose that the garden will bring Hope, Love, and Joy in abundance to all who are touched by the colours, scents and sounds of the “Peace which passes all understanding”.

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#fridayfootprints – Friday 4th October 2019

We have planted the seeds, mulched the soil, fertilized and watered, weeded and pruned, all in patient anticipation!

For what?

For the glorious display of floral beauty that every gardener strives for.

When we leave our gardens for a day, we return, anxious to see what has transpired in our absence. Has the shoot grown, has the bud blossomed? Our reward lies in seeing that there was progress whilst we were away.

And what of the Master Gardener, is it not the same for Him. Has He not chosen each of His plants for a purpose? Has He not given the plants spiritual nourishment? To what end?

To see progress! To see the shoot grow and to see the bud open in floral splendour.

How often does He return to the garden to find that the plants lie dormant? Sometimes chocked with weeds, or perhaps so concerned with personal growth they have forgotten to flower and fruit and seed.

Expectation, anticipation and boundless joy is our daily relationship with creation as we Garden with God.

Perhaps we should consider what the day holds in store for the Master Gardener when He surveys His garden?

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