Daily Affirmations - Day 1- Heavenly Gardener: Watered Garden

This week's Theme: Heavenly Gardener

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Day 1: Watered Garden

“And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not”  (Isaiah 58:11 - King James Version).

The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden... (Isaiah 58:11 – New International Version).

IV. The fourth blessing is this, AND THOU SHALT BE LIKE A WATERED GARDEN.

This figure of a garden is a very sweet and attractive one. I need not tell you how much taste may be displayed and how much pleasure may be derived from the cultivation of such plots of ground. Our fancy is soon at work to invent a picture of flower-beds, and fruit-trees, shady walks, and pleasant fountains, laid out close to some grand mansion, and opening its fairest views to the best apartments of the palace.

Such a garden needs constant care, and then, although it may be more beautiful at one season than another, it will never be like a wild heath, or totally bereft of charms. But alas! some [who profess to be followers of Christ] are not like this: there is little evidence of diligent cultivation in their character.

Instead of flowers of some kind all the year round, it is hard to say that they ever show much bloom: fruits you would never expect from them. But, dear brethren, you know that it is a comely thing for every Christian church, whether it be a large mansion or a little villa, to have a garden surrounding it, so that you may look out from the windows and see the various walks and the different plants that flourish there.

I have seen some gardens attached to small houses where the owner has portioned off little plots to each member of his family. And thus I believe the home has been made pleasanter and happier.

But oh! it is always a good thing when every member of the church has a spot to engage his heart and hands, and when they can all look with so much more satisfaction upon the tender blossoms and the full-blown flowers because they have watched and tended and watered the plants with a ministry of love.

This though is merely a hint by the way. It is not the exact meaning of the passage before us. Your own soul is to be under cultivation. The heavenly Gardener shall rejoice in your bloom.

An African traveller tells us, that he has often seen the contrast between an unwatered garden and a watered garden, and has been much surprised at it. In the case of the watered garden there may be a spring just outside of it, and the master has diligently brought in the water every morning, or every evening, poured it into the trench, and made it run along, and so the plant receives the moisture, and bears fruit, forming a pleasant contrast to the arid desert outside.

But there is another garden, with similar plants, apparently selected with the same care, but as it has not been watered, the traveller says that he has frequently observed the holes where the plant should be, without a vestige of the plant that has been perceptible. There was the trench where the water should have flowed; there were the paths in the garden; there was everything save and except this — there was no life, because there was no water.

O Christians, you know what this means! When the Holy Spirit visits God’s people, they are like a garden that is watered every day. They are green and flourishing, and their graces are an honour to the God who nourished them.

But, if the Holy Spirit be taken away from them how different is it! If he were utterly withdrawn from us — which, thank God, he will not be— we should be just like the wilderness from which we were taken, and not a vestige of grace would remain.

Christian, as all depends upon the watering of the Spirit, so make it a matter of soul concern with thee to be watered continually by God’s grace. Oh, do not trust to the stock thou hast, for it will fail thee!

Do not rely upon what thy soul may find within itself as being its own wisdom and strength, or thou wilt be deceived; but go thou to the Lord, and pray that thou mayest be as a watered garden — not as a garden only, but as a watered garden. So may each one of us do.