Good Morning Garden

People sometimes say, “ I believe firmly in the spiritual teaching, and I have done so for years, but I have never been able to make it work—isn’t that strange?” And sometimes they say this with quite an air of triumph.

Such people remind me of a man who used to boast that he had an ailment that no one could heal. He had successfully defied every school of healing and had emerged triumphantly still in possession of his affliction. As it happens, his wife did heal him later on by prayer alone, but she was a patient and persevering woman. That man’s wife probably points the way to the overcoming of such illogicality. The key to success lies in just the qualities that she obviously had; patience combined with a gentle and unhurried expectation of success.

The patient whom she healed is not a rare specimen, nor is he unknown to any one of us. We are all likely to encounter him under our own hat at any moment!

I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works…(Revelation 2:19).

Patience and a gentle and unhurried expectation of success are lacking in most of us. The world pushes for instant gratification, aggressive action, immediate results and the assumption that success only results from our direct action. However, true success is only assured when we turn to God in patience and confidence. It is when we drain out the self and its aggressive assumptions that patience and expectation replace hurried-ness and doubt. Even those who believe in God will have problems demonstrating if they do not expect success and are patient enough for it to happen in God’s way and according to God’s timetable. The wise old gardener plants a seed and then waits expectantly until its time has come to sprout. The impetuous youngster plants the same and watches impatiently each day for the sprout. The child may lose their expectation and even their confidence in the sprout long before it is due. The old gardener goes about his business with confidence until the time is right and then welcomes the new sprout with a smile. If we cultivate our gardens as wise gardeners, we will live in a state of quiet, patient and confident expectation of God’s grace and our gardens will flourish.

In expectation,
Z gardener