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Lessons in my Garden

by Linda Fitzpatrick  
6/01/2011 / Christian Living

Having read from Genesis early that morning Eden was in my thoughts. Gen 1:28 stated, "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." This was the very first commandment to man and it was given in the garden before relationships were damaged by sin. Song of Songs implies we are His garden. If we are His garden we must keep His garden free of sin. Sin, as invasive as weeds, affects our relationship with the Master Gardner, ourselves, and others. It attempts to soil by its effects our destiny and purpose by blocking out the light of the Son.
While weeding my flower beds around my house, I was amazed at the lessons the Lord showed me while I worked. Long-term neglect made the job appear overwhelming; it was evident the longer the delayed the worse it got. Procrastination had won out many times over and the garden's promise of beauty was being slowly being overtaken by an invasion of weeds. It is at that point when I received the following proverbs and words of wisdom from the Holy Spirit about sin in our lives and how to stop it.
1. Give some thought to the right time to start the job of removing the weeds, but if you wait until every condition is perfect you might not start at all.
2. Begin by beginning. Start somewhere!
3. Your motivation for starting doesn't matter. Before long you and others will soon enjoy your efforts.
4. God can even use vanity to motivate you to begin with because He knows you will need Him to finish the job in the end.
5. Start with the weeds (sins) you can remove the easiest before tackling the hardest.
6. Gloves like the Holy Spirit empower you with a better grip.
7. In the beginning mankind were to multiply the flowers and have dominion over the weeds.
8. After wrestling with a particular difficult weed for a long period of time, leave it for a little while and go on to another weed. If you don't, all your energy will use up on the stubborn one and you will not accomplish anything.
9. After successfully removing the easier weeds, the challenging one will stand alone and won't look so menacing.
10. Beneath the weeds you might discover things you have been looking for a very long time.
11. Back away occasionally and look with new eyes at what you and the Lord have accomplished.
12. The potential for continued growth occurs when you don't pull the weed out by its root.
13. To a gardener an approaching storm provides water, shade, and wind. Don't fear the storms sometimes they makes your work easier.
14. Try pulling the weed out from a new angle, sometimes the biggest ones can be taken down easier than you think.
15. Discouragement is as destructive as the weeds themselves.
16. Sometimes pulling 1 gets 2.
17. If you need help, get it. It makes the end come faster.
18. Stop occasionally and smell the gardenias.
19. Look out for snakes. (A snake is something with a long tail-a lie you have believed about yourself or others).
20. Look out for spiders and their webs. (Look for the source of the lies and how you get caught in its webs).
21. Sometimes you have to forgive yourself, others, and the weed maker for allowing weeds to grow in your garden.
22. Don't take short-cuts and don't be deceived. If you don't pull the weed out by its roots it will spread to another place.
23. A weed is a fool if it thinks it can hide among flowers and not be discovered.
24. Take the time to pull out the weeds from places you think no one will see because before long it will poke its head out anyway for everyone to see.
25. If you make a mistake while trying to get rid of the weeds, know that God's grace and new growth will cover the mistake in time.
26. If you get disheartened with the progress you are making examine your previous hard work and it will motivate you to continue.
27. Don't grow weary doing well. Sometimes the Lord makes us lie down beside still waters for our souls (will, emotions, matters of the heart, and thoughts) to be restored.
28. To beat the enemy and win the war you have to be pro-active. Go ahead and trim your nails and engage in the fight.
29. Set goals. Do what you can and be determined to finish as soon as possible.
30. Know ahead of time you might get sore and don't listen to excuses. This isn't a waste of timeits exercise!
31. Praise music and prayer make every job easier.
32. Diligence is to sin as maintenance is to weeding.
33. New growth from last year must make room for new growth this year.
34. If you don't want something to spread remove its support.
35. Negligence makes the neglector blind but improves the sight of others.
36. If your focus is only on the weeds you won't appreciate the flowers around them.
37. Refresh yourself often with the water of the Word and your thoughts will be renewed.
38. Manage the weeds or they will manage you.
39. Weeds take time to grow; they will take time to remove.
40. Weeds compete with flowers for attention, sunlight, and a place in the garden.

Song of Songs 4:12-16 compares the Bride of Christ to a garden. Gardens are meeting places where relationships can grow and love develops. Gardens when first planted are filled with hope and dreams of continual enjoyment. This garden enclosed should be well watered with its plants plentiful, fruit delicious, trees pleasant, and its spices useful. It doesn't take long before one sees how important weeding is to keep the garden as it was originally intended. If we are His garden let's get rid of the weeds!

www.worshiperswindow.com
Linda Fitzpatrick is wife, mother, Mimi (of two precious grandchildren), and a woman who loves Jesus and has heard His call to dance and to minister in the dance for the past nineteen years. Her journey to dance began when several women from Fellowship of Living Praise Church desired to worship Jesus in a more intimate way. It was soon discovered that many of the women longed to have a greater, more intimate relationship with Jesus, but life experiences made intimacy with anyone challenging. A weekly Bible study was formed to study our dance partner, Jesus, resulting in a dance team finally being formed seven years later. She has personally experienced the restoration power of dance when it is married with the Word of God as the Holy Spirit ushers healing down the aisle to the wounded soul. For the last twelve years, Fellowship of Living Praise Dance Ministry Team has learned to dance by the Holy Spirit, minister in the dance by Jesus, with the Father's fullest blessings. From the foothills of northern Georgia and other states, to Ottawa, Canada, and Ghana, Africa, Linda has shared Jesus' love and the importance of prophetic intercession dance as a weapon used for the Kingdom of God. As Prayer Minister Coordinator and team leader at her church, Linda's heart is to see the wounded healed, the broken restored, and the Bride of Christ victoriously dancing.

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