the Lord God formed the human from the topsoil of the fertile land and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and put there the human he had formed. In the fertile land, the Lord God grew every beautiful tree with edible fruit, and also he grew the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. – Genesis 2:7-9

Blessing the Garden and Sharing God’s Love:

Today’s post is about belief, and growth, and springtime, and blessings that expand exponentially!

Tuesday evening, right after supper, my friend Larry came by with a truckload of plants, seeds, and seedlings destined for the church garden.

The community garden at WFPC has taken off beautifully over the past few years, providing literally thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables to local food ministries. We’re talking year-round productivity that is planned, planted, nurtured, worked, tilled, weeded, prayed over, loved, watered, harvested, protected from marauding deer and gophers, and so much more by a team of volunteers who have a passion not just for gardening, but for service, for hunger ministry, for gospel, and for one another.

Larry is the engine that drives this whole initiative.

So, several years ago, Larry came to Rebekah’s office with a sad story of blight and disease in the garden. “Pastor, would you come out here and pray over this crop?” he asked.

Elder Kevin Meese happened to be in the office, so he went out to the field too (we have two expansive gardens at the church) and Rebekah improvised something beautiful.

Lo and behold the church garden had never before produced at such a spectacular, succulent, tasty, generous rate!

So it’s become a thing. And this month it meant Larry’s truck showing up in our driveway and a front stoop blessing because as we all know the Greatest Story Ever Told started in a garden, it came to its crescendo in a garden, and the story concludes – in Revelation 22 – in a garden too.

The Garden of Eden; The Garden of Gethsemane and the Garden Tomb; The Tree of Life around the river in the holy city, Jerusalem.

Then the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, shining like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb through the middle of the city’s main street. On each side of the river is the tree of life, which produces twelve crops of fruit, bearing its fruit each month. The tree’s leaves are for the healing of the nations. – Revelation 22:1-2

Our ministry is for the healing of the nations. In a sense, then, we are the leaves. – DEREK