Good Morning Garden

The common mistake, of course, is to suppose that a formal recognition of God is sufficient, or that talking about divine things is the same as possessing them; but this is exactly on a par with supposing that looking at a tray of food, or discussing the chemical composition of sundry foodstuffs, is the same thing as actually eating a meal. It is this mistake that is responsible for the fact that people sometimes pray for a thing for years without any tangible result. If prayer is a force at all, it cannot be possible to pray without something happening. Pray regularly and quietly; remember that in all mental work, effort or strain defeats itself; then presently, the realization will come.

Another reason why the symbol of bread for the experience of the Presence of God is such a telling one, is that the act of eating food is essentially a thing that must be done for oneself. No one can assimilate food for another. In the same way, the realization of the Presence of God is a thing that no one else can have for us.

For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness (Psalm 107:9).

The relationship between God and mankind is summarized by offer and response. God created and offers mankind a wonderful world that provides for all our needs in a place of beauty and peace. It is our job to respond to that offer by living according to God’s will in harmony and joy.

Claiming the bread,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Give us this day our daily bread (Matthew 6:11).

Because we are the children of a loving Father, we are entitled to expect that God will provide us with everything we need. If we do so expect, in faith and understanding, we shall never look in vain.

It is the will of God that we should all lead healthy, happy lives, full of joyous experience; that we should develop freely and steadily. To this end we require such things as food, clothing, shelter, means of travel, books, and so on; above all, we require freedom. In the Prayer all these things are included under the heading of bread; that is to say, not merely food in general, but all things required for a healthy, free, and harmonious life. But in order to obtain these things we have to claim them, and we have to recognize God alone as the source and fountainhead of all our good. Lack of any kind is always traceable to the fact that we have been seeking our supply from some secondary source, instead of from God himself, the author and giver of life.

When we look to God for all our needs, our guidance and our strength, all the things we need for our best good will find us. We will not have to struggle to find them, run from pillar to post to gather them or fight to keep them. Just as Eden was given to us as a gift, it will be reopened to us as an invitation from God. Not by our will, but by the Father’s. To live in our Eden all we need to do is ask God for the key and then follow him like an obedient child.

Following the leader,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Thy kingdom come (Matthew 6:10).

Man, being manifestation or expression of God, has a limitless destiny before him. His work is to express, in concrete, definite form, the ideas that God furnishes him, and in order to do this, he must have creative power. Elsewise, he would be merely a machine through which God worked; an automaton. But man, having the nature of his father, remains a creator. Notice that the word individual means “undivided.” The consciousness of man is not separated from God’s consciousness.

“Thy kingdom come” means that it is our duty to bring more and more of God’s ideas into concrete manifestation upon this plane. That is what we are here for. The old saying, “God has a plan for every man, and he has one for you,” is quite correct.

If only you can find out the thing God intends you to do, and will do it, you will find that all doors will open to you, and you will be gloriously happy. There is a true place in life for each one of us where we can bring the Kingdom of God into manifestation, and truly say, “Thy kingdom cometh.”

Well, there we have it. Our job is to bring God’s Kingdom into the physical plane here below. We must figure out what God intends for us through the creative power he has given us. That is a charge to be pro-active, not passive.

On the job,
Z gardener

Author’s note: Today a new brother joins us in the garden. He is a divinity student and state employee who works daily to preserve and protect the health of our citizens. He also works daily to bring the spirit of God into our state capitol and shares it with those who need it most. He has taken his job assignment from God, and we are blessed that he brings his labor of love into our midst in the garden. Welcome, brother.

Read Full Post »

Having clearly established the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, Jesus next goes on to describe the fundamental facts of existence. It is the nature of God to be in heaven, and of man to be on earth because God is Cause, and man is manifestation. Here heaven stands for God or Cause, because in religious phraseology heaven is the term for the Presence of God. The word earth signifies manifestation, and man’s function is to manifest or express God as Cause. In other words, God is the Infinite and Perfect Cause of all things; but Cause has to be expressed, and God expresses Himself by means of man. Man’s destiny is to express God in all sorts of glorious ways. To express means to press outward, or bring into sight. Every feature of your life is really a manifestation or expression of something in your soul.

Since it is misunderstandings about the relationship of God and man that lead to all our difficulties, it is worth any amount of trouble to correctly understand that relationship. Trying to have manifestation without Cause is atheism and materialism, and we know where they lead. “Our Father which art in heaven.”

“as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them”(2 Corinthians 6:16).

What a glorious realization it is for us to know that God presses himself out into the physical world through us! Every child born into this world is a part of His consciousness and will, poking into our world. Like a thumb on the hand of God’s consciousness, it pushes through the veil of our sensory separation to manifest itself here below. How precious is each and every human being ever born!

Thumbs Up,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Father of All

He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast;
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small:
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
Coleridge

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the Fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee; that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this (Job 12:7-9).

The Father of all who loves us all calls us to love all. We are instructed to love not only all people, but also the animals and the earth. And, we are promised that if we do love all, we will be instructed by the people, the animals and the earth on how to live in our gardens in harmony with all.

Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Now the Prayer says, not “My Father,” but “Our Father,” and this indicates beyond the possibility of mistake, the truth of the brotherhood of man. If forces upon our attention at the very beginning the fact that all men are the children of one Father; and that

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).

Here Jesus cuts away the illusion that the members of any nation, or race, or territory, or group, or class, or color, are, in the sight of God, superior to any other group.

The final point is the implied command that we are to pray not only for ourselves but for all mankind. None of us lives to himself, however we may try. In a much more literal sense than people are aware we are limbs of one Body.

“Our Father”, a spiritual explosive, that will ultimately destroy every kind of human bondage.

This means all that divides us, all that separates us from each other or pits us against each other is against God’s created order, his will and our very nature as children of God. Further, separation is the illusion, created by Satan and used by some humans to manipulate, exploit and control humankind. The original sin committed by Adam and Eve was to separate themselves from God in order to follow their own will and to expropriate to themselves the role of God. What a long, hard road that decision to accept the illusion and follow that lie has been! What a cost it has exacted on mankind! And it is still the cause of most of our human misery and the vehicle to inflict fear, pain and injustice on our brothers and sisters today all around this tiny globe on which we live.

Peace,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Note that this clause that fixes the nature of God, at the same time fixes the nature of man. It is a cosmic law that like begets like. It is not possible that a rosebush should produce lilies, or that a cow should give birth to a colt. The offspring must be of the same nature as the parent; and so, since God is divine Spirit, man must essentially be divine Spirit too, whatever appearance may say to the contrary.

At a single blow this teaching of Jesus swept away 99 percent of all the old theology, with its avenging God, its chosen and favored individuals, its eternal hell fire, and all the other horrible paraphernalia of man’s diseased and terrified imagination. God exists; and the Eternal, All-Powerful, All-Present God is the loving Father of mankind.

If you would meditate upon this fact, until you had some degree of understanding of what it really means, most of your difficulties and physical ailments would disappear, for they are rooted in fear. If only you could realize to some extent that Omnipotent Wisdom is your living, loving Father, most of your fears would go. If you could realize it completely, every negative thing in your life would vanish away. Now you see the object that Jesus had in mind when he placed this clause first.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him (Genesis 1:27).

We can all think back to a time as a child when we were afraid and the mere presence of our Father caused the fear to melt away. We knew then, that the monster under the bed could not get us because Daddy was in the room. While our grown up fears may not all be imaginary like the monster under the bed, many if not most are imagined fears of things that may come to pass.

Regardless if our fears are as real as a mortgage payment we can’t make or as imaginary as the fear of failure, all our fears, real and imagined would melt away if we can have the childlike faith in our heavenly father that we had in our earthly father.

Courage is not the lack of fear, it is the ability to go forward even in fear. But courage is not the antidote to fear; faith in our heavenly Father is, and he is always in the room.

Today, let us realize Father, that you are always in our garden, and that our garden was created by you as a safe place where we can be free of fear and live in peace.

Faithfully yours,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

This simple statement fixes clearly the nature and character of God. It tells all that man needs to know about God, and about himself, and about his neighbor. Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “My religion is summed up in the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer.”

“Our Father.” In this clause Jesus lays down once and for all that relationship between God and man is that of father and child. This eliminates any possibility that the Deity could be the relentless and cruel tyrant. The majority of men and women are at their best in dealing with their children. Speaking of the same truth elsewhere, Jesus said:

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him? (Matthew 7:11).

In the physical plane, we all have fathers. Our father is usually the person (along with our mother) who have the greatest impact in our lives for good or ill. Those who have loving, attentive and dedicated fathers benefit from the greatest opportunity for success in all areas of their lives. Of course, anyone can waste that opportunity, turn away from their father and go their own way. In most cases, that turns out to be a very bad decision.

In obedience,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »