NOT IN THE GARDEN AND NOT ALONE

I wish that sunrise came earlier in Florida. As a five-o’clock riser, my garden-alone time with Jesus takes place in an artificially lighted living room near a window with blinds drawn against the lingering darkness. By the time we take our first stroll together around the shrubs and plants which make up the perimeter of our back yard, I am only moments away from the labors of the day. Lewis spoke to this early morning time in “The Weight of Glory, when he wrote: 

“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see.” 

That inability to mingle is, for me, the best way to describe various feelings which wash over me in different circumstances. The sense of a quiet Saturday afternoon in full sun when seems to say, “There’s joy nearby. Take a deep breath. Maybe you can capture it.” 

          Lewis went on to write: all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in.” 

So, now, here I am at my office desk looking out on the sunbathed street where trees stand against a cloudless sky and the homes of our neighbors. For a moment I think of the lines: 

“I’d stay in the garden with Him,

Though the night around me be falling.

But He bids me go, with the voice of woe.

His voice to me is calling.” 

However, unlike the stanza, this morning there is no bitter contradiction of being sent and being called to stay, at the same time. Truly, I cannot enter into the sublime moments of nature, but I need not depart from the fellowship of my always-present God. My relationship with Him is not a check-in-later one. Although it is not always (and sometimes is not often), in a garden, it is always (though sometimes I forget) with Him. 

I’d stay in the garden with Him,

Though the noise of daytime is starting;

But he bids me rise and press toward the skies,

He will not be departing.   

          So, taking another sip of coffee, I set about the task of posting this note and then tackling other tasks, with Jesus at my side while His creation peers in my window.