Fascination!

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time this week working in my yard trimming and pruning bushes, cleaning up the flower beds and planters after the frost-led demise of my summer flowers, and doing some early soil preparations as spring is only a little over a month away! 

I love gardening and as long as I can remember… always have.  My parents and grandparents were avid gardeners, and in fact, my dad’s father who passed before I was born, was a professional gardener who took care of the gardens of the wealthy folks living in San Francisco during the Great Depression!  So, I guess you could say that it is kind of in my DNA! 

I began working a side business with my brother when I was in junior high mowing lawns, caring for residential yard and gardens… and I even recall us taking care of the shrubbery and outdoor areas at a large green profession building in downtown Santa Rosa!

And ever since then, I have pretty much always had some sort of side yard and garden business to work with.  Even when we came to school here in 2006, I picked up a job mowing a friend’s lawn… besides going to school for up to 5 hours a day and working at Home Depot (in the garden department) for 40 hours a week… Oh!  And did I mention all of the exploratory doctor appointments we were scheduling for Piper?  Yeah… it was a sort of crazy busy time… but getting to attend Bible School made it all worth it!

Now… I said all that about gardening because whenever I am outdoors working with the grass, dirt and plants, I can’t help but find myself lost in all the great gardening memories from my childhood and in our own homes after Piper and I got married!  Watching my parents around the yard was like observing poetry in motion.  They loved every moment of it… and taught me most everything I know about it!

Piper never worked much in the garden as she was busy enough raising and teaching our four kids!  But once the kids were grown, she took a real liking to it.  When I was working the schedule I mentioned above while going to school out here, I would come home and find her weeding the lawn and she actively helped me to mow and care for it as well.  By then I had a pretty fancy, powerful, self-propelled, semi-professional mower that she really enjoyed operating!  (Like I’ve mentioned on previous occasions, she loved hot cars… and I guess that passion extended to hot lawnmowers as well!) 

After we moved back home to California and rented a little cluster home, she kept both patios and the gardens I planted clean, free of weeds and otherwise well-tended to, until the Alzheimer’s caused her to begin to forget how to do most things we all tend to take for granted.

So, those sweet and fun memories of the art of gardening, which always FASCINATED me, flooded my mind when I was mudding up my knees in the dirt this week.  It therefore, also caught my attention when I read a different translation of James 1:25 where the leader of the church in Jerusalem taught,

“Those who set their gaze deeply into the perfecting law of liberty (and) are FASCINATED by and respond to the truth they hear and are strengthened by it—they experience God’s blessing in all that they do!”  (TPT)

I got the distinct idea that James was referring to being FASCINATED by the Word, which he described as “the perfecting law of liberty,” in a similar way that I find myself FASCINATED by the art of gardening.  Except for the first house that we lived in out here while attending school, where the management company specifically requested that we didn’t plant anything, we have had a garden in every place we’ve lived!  I guess you could say that I have come to the point that gardening is something that I love and just gotta do!

When I go into a store, I always find myself being drawn to the garden department if they have one… even if it is a little bit funky and less than well stocked like the Walmart near my house… but I also have a Lowes, a Tractor Supply Company and an Atwood’s Ranch and Home store within a few miles of my home to keep me satisfied!

And as I think about it, James was right in that I find myself FASCINATED by the Word of God in a similar manner as gardening.  I’m drawn to it on a daily basis!  For me, a day NOT started with a cup of coffee and my Bible is… well… it just isn’t a day!  If something comes up and I have to leave the home early on a particular day, I always schedule enough time in my morning in order to have some quiet time with the Lord in His Word before I leave.

I am FASCINATED by different translations of the Bible and tend to order copies of versions that I had never heard of before.  It always FASCINATES me how different translations can bring out layers and understandings of a well-known verse, that I hadn’t seen before!  I always tend to laugh when I hear someone say, “Oh yeah, I read the Bible once before” and think that they have a good understanding of it!  Hebrews 4:12 tells us that “God's word is living and active…”   I am FASCINATED by the way that its revelation is always fresh and new when I pick it up!

I get excited on Sunday morning’s when I prepare to hear the Preacher bring forth that day’s fresh, new message from the Word of God.  I am continually FASCINATED by the way that I can EXPECT to learn something from them that I hadn’t known before.  

This is kind of off the subject of gardening… except maybe from the standpoint of cultivating a strong relationship… but I most likely kissed my wife thousands of times during the 48 years that we were together… and even though I may have known what was going to happen when we did kiss… I was always FASCINATED by how that current kiss was just as new, fresh and exciting (and maybe even more so) than our first kisses in high school!

So… let me ask you?  Is that how FASCINATED you are with the Word of God and of its influence in your life?  What hobby and/or activity that FASCINATES you in your life, can you… or would you like to… associate with your relationship to Jesus Christ through your personal time spent with Him in the Word?

Hummmm… quite the FASCINATING subject wouldn’t you say?

Have a great weekend!  We are freezing out here with 21-degree weather today (dropping from 65 for the last week…),but are EXPECTING God’s best as it is supposed to rise back up to the 50’s and beyond through tomorrow and next week… and I pray God’s best for you as well!