Tuesday, June 29

The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.
—Isaiah 58:11

Imagine the beauty of a watered garden. The bright color of flowers flashing in the sun, the beads of dampness on green leaves, the shy hesitancy of buds beginning to unfold their petals, and the lovely tranquility of a care-free life Imagine if our lives were like the watered garden. If our souls were as secure in the hand of heaven as flowers in the warmth of the sun. 

Much of the parched and arid feeling that overtakes and even overcomes us comes from our trying to be something other than what we are, or trying to manipulate and control our circumstances, or insisting that we are the only ones responsible for our lives. We stress and strain to be in control and sadly find ourselves feeling, not like a watered garden, but like dry, fissured dirt in a desolate desert.

Try being a flower for a day, simply being the willing recipient of God’s great grace. Let the hand of heaven mold and shape you, warm you, nourish you. Watch yourself unfold and notice how you pirouette as playfully as a daisy in the soft breeze.

O God, help me let go of my life for just a day, to become a flower in the sun.

These Signposts originally appeared on explorefaith in 2003.