GROWTH.

My grandmother was a gardener. She was the best at it. 

I remember spending many mornings with her planting seeds. Shoveling up soil with her hand trowel. Then going to fetch a watering can. Filling it up to lavish the plants in what they needed to grow. I remember even fighting over that task with my sisters. Everyone wanted to be the one who watered.

Then we would walk back inside and do the next thing in front of her.

Looking back, I wish I would have paid more attention to her hands as she planted the garden. But also as she tended the garden. And as she waited for the growth. 

The gentleness, yet the strength. The work, yet the care. The consistency, yet the confidence. The hands of a gardener should not be overlooked. 

They are ever present in the work of the garden. They are one of the constants and necessities to a plant’s growth. They are willing to get dirty. And always working for and caring for their plants. 

Even more than her hands… I wish I would have paid closer attention to the look on my grandmother’s face in all those things too. Was it boredom? Frustration? Confusion? Impatience? Rushing?

Or was it gratitude? Relief? Trust? Freedom? Joy?

This has caused me to wonder what do God’s hands look like working in the garden of my heart? What does His face look like? 

Is He ever bored, frustrated, confused, impatient, wanting to rush it all? I don’t think so because He knows exactly what He is doing and exactly what His garden needs. 

But I think that is often the look on our faces. It takes time and the growing pains hurt, so we begin to wonder if the growing is even really all that worth it.

We would rather avoid the waiting. Avoid the dark nights. Avoid the storms that come our way. Avoid the light breaking through. We would rather avoid the discomfort and just hope that we grow anyways.

So the expression on our faces grows frustrated at the Gardener, because we have grown bored and impatient in the waiting. We have tried to rush Him, and are now confused questioning if the Gardener knows what He is doing.

The truth is, we have just missed what He is doing.

Ecclesiastes 3 is very well known scripture. “There is a time for everything,” the author writes, “a time for every matter under heaven.”

He depicts many moments of time, with one being, “a time to plant, and a time to uproot.”

I’ve read this scripture many times, but it was only recently that I actually leaned into the repetition. Time. 

There is time for every matter under heaven. The Eternal God who is outside of time made it that way. 

So why do we rush? Why do we get frustrated? Why do we grow impatient? Why do we question God’s timing… when He is outside of time? And He promises there is time for every matter under heaven. 

It has grown obvious to me that time is the god of this world. 

We have little boxes in our hands that do everything for us in seconds. And when it fails to do so, we get mad. So when people do not respond immediately, or help us, or do what we want… we lose it. Not only so, but we have an 8 second attention span. We get upset when we are in church longer than the time allotted. And how is our food is not here yet! We can’t stand when things don’t come when we want. 

So we try to put God in that box of time. When He is outside of time.

We have truly lost the art of patience. So we have completely missed the joy of waiting. 

Patience is more than just something a Christ follower should hope to have, it is the very fruit of God’s spirit. Patience is the very character of God. 

In Exodus 34 God calls Himself, “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”

The God of all creation is these things. 

Someone who is known by their great compassion, grace, love, faithfulness, and slowness to anger… has to be patient.

2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

I love how it says, “as some understand slowness.” 

Perhaps we have completely misunderstood time. Our world views it as just the means to the day. What is required of us to get from point a to point b. We are mindless followers of time.

So when time doesn’t go at the speed we hope, we feel lost. Angry. Betrayed.

Ecclesiastes is a book of the Bible that I have read through, but not deeply studied. It puzzles me how often the author concludes his chapters with, “everything is meaningless.” 

And to be completely honest it saddens my heart. I’ve wondered why would he write everything is meaningless? It doesn’t appear that encouraging. But the truth is, everything is. When viewed from the wrong perspective. 

The author often labels his thoughts as “under the sun thinking.” But notice how when He mentions that there is time for every season, He says that is true for every matter “under Heaven.”

That perspective shifted. 

Living in under the sun thinking is living based on time. Because we all know there are 24 hours in one day, with only about 12 hours of daylight. If we are in the spring. Living day to day with only so many hours can feel like we never have enough time.

But under Heaven thinking knows, as the author of Ecclesiastes says, “He has also set eternity in the human heart.” 

When we live under the sun, we never have enough time. We live hurried + rushed. Not knowing how to enjoy the time we have been given. When we live under heaven, we know we have just the right amount of time to do all God has called us to do. And for Him to do all He has planned to do. And we know that all we do now is simply in respect to how we will one day live for all of eternity with God. There is purpose in this kind of living.

How do I know this is true? Because Jesus lived it out. 

Jesus came to earth knowing He was one day going to die and rise to life. His whole life He knew his hour was coming. 

Yet He didn’t rush. He walked the dust. He waited on God to say go. He stayed back when everyone told Him to go. He didn’t run ahead of God. He desired to live in submission to God, and follow His will. He was patient with those walking with Him. He had time to rest, and withdraw to be with The Father alone. He reclined at tables with sinners, friends, pharisees, and more. He knew where He was going, yet allowed Himself to be interrupted by those who needed Him. He used His precious time to sweep low to meet with people. He went the long way to sit with people. He had divine appointments He was never late to. He took His time healing people and saving people. He spent His time yielding to God instead of batting His eye at time.

One of my favorite instances of this is in John 6. Jesus has just heard the news of His cousin, John the Baptist, being killed. He wants to withdraw to mourn. Yet, He sees the crowd following Him and He has compassion on them because “they were like sheep without a shepherd.” So He feeds 5000 men, and their wives and their children, with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. 

After He collects the 12 basketfuls of leftovers… He sends His disciples ahead of Him on the Sea of Galilee so He can have time alone with the Father. 

Then, casually, He walks about 4 miles to them on water. By foot. In a storm. Yeah, you heard that right. Upon His arrival, they all grow frightened and He says, “it is I, do not be afraid.” 

It says the disciples “were willing to take him into the boat.” Then John writes, “and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.”

Jesus was always present. In Mark 6 it says “He saw the disciples straining at the oars,” but it wasn’t until “shortly before dawn” that He made His way out to them. 

Sometimes we view God’s work as His presence. So when we feel as though He is not working, or better yet - when we can’t see it. We think He is not present. However, He always saw them. He walked to them. But then it wasn’t until the disciples were aware of His presence, that they took Him into their boat. Then the miraculous happened. They immediately reached the other side. 

John wouldn’t have written that word had it not been true. Mark writes “immediately” often. John uses that word very few times. 

Enduring Word says, “From this detail given by John it is inferred that the ship seemed to move automatically, without sail or oar, in obedience to His will: so that without effort of the disciples or crew it quickly passed over the remaining distance (two miles or so) and came to shore.” 

With God, we can't measure what He does by our time, but only by His time. For He is doing things we can't always see. Growth is always first unseen.

Another instance is the time when Jesus stays back while His brothers try to tell Him to go ahead into Judea, when Jesus knew it would have been too early to go publicly. And when Jesus stays back 2 days before going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

I love this quote from Enduring Word about John 11… “Nothing can shorten our time. There is enough time for everything that needs to be done. We only have that time, so it must not be wasted.”

People often say God is slow. But I’ve never read that anywhere. Saying He is slow is measuring Him by our time, not His. God is not slow. God is a God of suddenly. Of immediately. Yet He is a God of great patience. He is fully aware of time, but He is outside of it. Time is in submission to Him. So why do we live in submission to time? 

How can we measure a Timeless God with time? 

All of this talk about time is not to say you have all the time in the world, do whatever you want! Don’t worry! Have fun! It’s instead to say, we don’t have to put a time frame on God. We can trust in Him more than we trust in time. We can trust when He says there is a time for every matter under Heaven, that it is true. We don't have to rush Him. We can instead trust Him.

This will save us much pain when things don’t come in “our time,” we can rest assured God is not slow in keeping His promise as some count slowness. But instead, He is patient with us. And has chosen to have a time for everything. So that no time is wasted or overlooked. 

If we continue to measure an eternal God by time, we often keep away from alone time with Him. From living in the awareness of His presence. When that is what we will be doing for all of eternity. No time will be able to steal from all of who God is! Because we will be with Him, with undivided attention, forever! 

Perhaps the waiting is His patience toward us? Isaiah 40:31 says when we wait He renews our strength. Perhaps He is using the wait to renew us, so we will rely wholly on His Strength to take hold of the promise He wants to give us. But we miss His fresh strength wishing time away. 

An instance of this is the way God shows how patient He is with us by what Jesus did with His time here.  

I’m sure God could have chosen a quicker way for Jesus to die. But He showed us His love in long suffering. 

He could have come as a 33 year old man, and immediately died on the cross. With no interaction or relationship. But He didn’t. He came as a baby born of a virgin. 9 months of growing in His mother’s womb. Was nursed as a newborn, and taught how to walk, talk, eat, grow. Had siblings and parents. He knew imperfect love on this side of Heaven. He lived a whole life. 

God chose for Him to be with people. To build relationship with people. To reveal Himself to people. To heal people. Walk with people. Save people. Then be hung on a cross by those same people. Be denied and left by those same people. By betrayed by those same people. 

God chose for His One and Only Son to spend all of His life knowing this was why He was living it. Can you imagine the agony and stress building up the week before His death? In the Garden of Gethsemane, He knew how much time He had left, yet He spent His time with God crying out to Him, sweating blood.

Then He was tried over and over. Accused, beaten, mocked, stripped. His forehead was pierced with a crown of thorns, and His back was whipped 39 times. He was forced to carry our cross up Calvary Hill. Walking slowly, in pain. They cast lot for His clothes. His feet were pierced by nails. His hands pierced too.

Then He stayed there. And suffered. Slowly. 

And it just breaks my heart to think that in the richest exemplification of God’s mercy, He was also showing us His heart of patience. Patience toward His own creation who chose their own way since the beginning of time. 

Think about God for a minute. He created His creation. He didn’t have to, He wanted to. And He wanted to live with them forever. But they chose their own way. And He spent years and years watching their sin grow, and their love for Him shrink. Watching His creation choose everything but Him. Constantly messing up their lives. Abandoning their first love. 

Yet He was patient with them. 

And He still came. And He dwelled.

And then He stayed. So we could choose Him too. The nails could have been hammered in and God could have snapped and it was all done, He is God. But He didn’t. He showed you how He has suffered for you.

He showed us with time just how much He loves us.

And after suffering for years, then suffering for painful hours on the cross - the sky grew dark, and with His final breath, full of excruciating pain, He suffered to cry Tetelestai! Just to tell us it is finished. 

We shattered His heart, yet He came to restore ours. Because that’s what satisfied His. 

He has not only been so beyond merciful with us, He has also been patient with us. He never had to. But He loved us so much He chose to.

Patience is a choice. Patience is love. 

Perhaps waiting seasons are opportunities to look more like Jesus. Perhaps they are opportunities to show our love for God as He has showed His. Perhaps the waiting is always for our good. Perhaps the waiting is worth it because of who has waited on us. Perhaps waiting is revering The One True God outside of time as Faithful and Good, instead of revering time itself. Perhaps the wait is God’s way of showing His love toward us. 

Did you know patience broken down means “to suffer, to bear?”

And 1 Corinthians 13 infamously states first that “Love is Patient.” 

Love suffers. Love bears. Love waits. Because Love always trusts. Always protects. Always hopes. Always perseveres. 

And the One whom Jesus loved writes in 1 John 4 that God is Love. I think John would know. He lived confidently in Jesus’ love. 

For John and the rest of the disciples surrendered their time to Jesus. They left their livelihoods to walk with the God outside of time. They never knew what was coming next, but they knew who was in control. So they could trust Him. They had no where better they hoped to be. No where they were rushed to go. Because nothing else mattered but walking with Jesus: The One who lived aware of time, yet chose to live according to God’s will. 

I want to be like them. With no where better to spend my time, but with My Savior, My Lord, My God. Choosing to live according to God's will, trusting Him with every second of my life, instead of worrying and questioning Him because of time.

Choosing patience produces compassion in us. And love. And Joy. But the presence of God in our lives is what produces patience. 

Maybe the waiting, the growing, the time - needs to be saturated in an awareness of God’s presence. So that patience, trust, peace can be what blooms. 

The waiting is always for a purpose. Therefore, the growing is too. A gardener’s hands are prepared, yet never going to rush the growth. A gardener’s face is grateful, even while they cannot yet see the result of their crop. 

They have learned to find the joy in knowing that a plant is growing, even when you can't see it. The growing is always first unseen. For they know the garden they have in mind. And they never give up on it. 

Although I didn't pay as much attention as I wished to my grandmother's face and hands as she gardened, I can look at the bloody hands + Holy face of The Gardener of my heart and see such compassion, patience, joy, love that only the best Gardener could have.

In John 15, during Jesus' final hours before the cross, He says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the Gardener.”

God is The Gardener. Jesus is The Vine. And He desires we abide in Him. Then bear much fruit. He desires us to be with Him. Then promises that He will do the growing in us.

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” 1 Corinthians 3:6-9

God is the one who makes things grow. Therefore, He always knows exactly what He is doing. And He is never worried about the time, for He is the Manager of Time. 

More than ease, He is most pleased to be with us, and to grow us. What grace!

So don’t grow discouraged. As long as we are rooted in Christ, we can trust that He is growing us. All growth takes time. So spend the time abiding in Him, growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. And believing He is patient. Compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. He is pursuing. He is the God of suddenly. He does as He pleases. And it pleases Him to be patient with you. 

Wait. Stay. Remain. In His love as He remains in you. He says to do this so that His joy may be in you. And that it may be complete.

Perhaps those who wait on Him, with Him, in Him, know the true gift of complete Joy that He alone gives. No wonder the world would want us to think otherwise about time to miss that.

Less rushing. More trusting. Less impatience. More Joy.

This is the life of a growing plant under the unconquerable light of Jesus + the timeless care of the Gardener.