I am being like my Father when I squat in the soil and dig my tool into the cracked earth, working it down beside the long root, wiggling the spreading dandelion leaves to loosen the root before the final pop and pull.
As I dig up weeds in our back garden beds—often only clearing a 3-foot plot at a time (while my son picks pieces of peanut butter and jelly from his camp-chair tray and watches me)—I think of God, and how He created our world, “dividing” light from darkness, “separating” the waters, then “gathering” them together. His words created, brought order out of disorder, peace out of chaos. And in the Eden garden, amidst the panoply of plants, flowering and fragrant, he placed the human to cultivate and tend the garden (Gen. 2:15). Humans (and the earth!) flourish when we do what God created us to do, the same work He began and patterned for us—taming the darkness, cultivating the unruly earth into beauty.
When I do the same, I image Him.
Through the repetition of my days—the diaper changes on the carpet and the sliding dirty dishes into the dishwasher, the loading and unloading of clothes, the crushing of garlic and boiling of eggs, the packing of lunch boxes and emptying them later—He is with me, standing beside me at the sink, kneeling on the living room floor as I fold pants and match socks. Do I have the eyes to see Him, the servant-king Jesus, working beside me?
Each weed-full trash bag I haul away brings a sense of pride and quiet joy. I feel His joy in me, the “rightness” of working and keeping my garden, like He commanded the first humans, like He has charged humans to do ever since. Each spot I clear along the hairline of our garden beds remind me that I am doing a good thing, a God-thing.
He is a cultivator.
I am a cultivator.
...in Him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:28
Beautiful Tabitha. And thought provoking. Makes me want to get out to the gardens to cultivate, while appreciating how much He is cultivating inside the garden of my heart. And the oh, so mundane, is not really so with Jesus right there beside us. Very glad you shared this!
Yes. <3 The cultivating He does inside of us...not as obvious, sometimes--slower, often--but more beautiful, for sure. I've been meditating on that idea, too, but not yet ready to write on it.
I love the picture you paint and the contrast of Jesus as a servant working beside you. Servant King Jesus is such an inspiration for me and a great reminder for our work no matter the content.