Week Three

The Gardener’s Hands

The Father’s Nurturing

Now we join our Father God out in the garden, we stroll through the orchards, the vineyards, seeing the care and attention he gives to cultivating the ground, nurturing seedlings. The generous cultivation of the gardener turns water and sunshine and hope into wonderful fruit!

SEEDS TO SOW: Pruning is an important part of gardening, but how do we ensure that when we prune we do so in the same generous spirit as our Father God?

Read Psalm 104

Beginning in awe. 

We begin this week in the place of awe, amazed at the works of the Master Gardener!

What can we learn about our Father God through the natural world?

Read John 15: 1-17

My Father the gardener

Jesus gives us this striking picture of God as a skilled gardener coaxing growth and fruit from a vine, pruning and tending the branches.

Picture a devoted gardener so attuned to the whole environment, knowing the acidity and moisture content of the soil, keeping an eye on the temperature and wind direction, rainfall levels, and seasonal changes. Gardeners have time to watch branches slowly grow over years and in the same way God knows the whole context, where you have come from, where you are growing, the soil you grew in, the winds and pests you’ve endured.

Nobody knows you like God knows you, no one else has that perspective.

A loving gardener cannot and will not keep a garden in a laboratory — a true garden can’t live in a sterile antiseptic environment — it has to be outside in the real world to grow, just like us. And yet gardens can be places of peace, continuity and abundant fruit.

What does it mean to abide in that knowledge? To abide in that care?

Read Isaiah 58: 1-12

A beautiful thriving garden!

God’s timeless cry against injustice “Is not this the fast that I choose…” offers us a way of claiming our heritage of a vibrant well watered garden.

It’s a beautiful vision of how equality and fairness and dignity feel like the peace and shelter and beauty of a garden, tended by the Master Gardener himself - our Father God.

Individually describe what your own perfect garden would look like. What would it look like, sound like, smell like? And most importantly what would it feel like?

Then as a group take the elements you like best from all your gardens and think about how those things could inspire you to serve your local community?

For instance if you have a nice nook to sit and read in your imaginary garden, think about how you could provide places for rest and learning in your community.