When I first moved to the house we now call home, I planted a garden behind the garage. The soil was good there, and it seemed appropriate in my eyes. So I put in rows of carrots, onions, potatoes, peppers and tomatoes. To be fair, I never even considered why I would plant in rows. It just seemed natural. After all, we want to be neat, organized and structured, because structure means convenience.
In my garden this spring, I firstly considered where various plants could grow. The area behind the garage has been vastly renovated – I now have five wooden raised planting beds there (and a 6th lower one right against the garage), and a new garden area behind the old one. Each receives different amounts of sunlight owing to the trees surrounding my yard. Also, I put in another new garden by the side of the house that doesn’t receive direct sunlight, and a small stone garden area outside the kitchen. With so many areas to choose from, it made more sense to me to put different kinds of plants in different areas. So potatoes are now in the side garden, strawberries in the new (further back) garden, herbs near the kitchen and various food plants (too many to mention here) in the raised beds. Looking at all that, I realized that my garden still has structure, but no longer is ‘complete’ in the sense of being in one place – unless you define that place as the entire yard. It’s a bit less convenient in some respects (many areas to water). But it’s also more convenient in other respects (like picking herbs for cooking). I also put in raspberries in the lower area at the back of the garage and blueberries next to the herb garden.
Then I went on vacation for a few days to a cottage in mid-northern Ontario. I love the country up here, the scenery and the peacefulness of it all.
As I am writing this I am near Tobermory, looking out from the cottage porch across the yard, past the ‘beach’ area, past the swamp to the lake and beyond that to the trees. And I’m thinking of what can be grown up here. The owner had put in a small garden area to the west, and enclosed it with chicken wire (there are a LOT of rabbits up here). But being absent most of the time (hence the renting to strangers), his little garden is overgrown with weeds. Two potato plants in the middle are struggling to overcome, undoubtedly remnants of a year or two ago, long forgotten. It is hard to keep structure up here – the growing season is shorter by at least a month, so many plants are just not going to make it, and the ground is acidic (evidenced by all the pine trees around us), so many other plants are not going to do well. How inconvenient!
I guess that’s another reason to NOT consider living up here one day. How would you grow all you needed/wanted in this environment? How would you stay in touch with family and friends when everyone else you know lives 3 hours south? Surely if it wasn’t for family being in Southern Ontario, I would in many ways want to live up north. But such is the compromise we make for the sake of family. Surely if it wasn’t for the limitations of money, time, distance and human frailty, my wife and I could have a place here with all the luxuries of home and also the gardens we so enjoy.
And I thought of God’s garden. He plants oranges in Florida, mangoes in Africa, tea in SriLanka, coffee in South America and apples in Ontario. That’s not very convenient either. At least not for us – we are not ‘everywhere’ nor can we travel from place to place just by thinking, so it seems most inconvenient to us. But surely it is not so for the Lord. For Him, it is just as close to put things where they grow best as it would be to grow them together, and the whole earth is His ‘garden’ from that perspective (indeed, it’s not restricted to earth, as the tree of life only grows in heaven!). Structure no longer looks the same if space and time don’t affect you!
That brings us to thinking about heaven. Specifically the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God to the earth - see Rev 21. (I’ve been studying Revelation lately because I see it necessary to preach our “Simple Truth” series out of it, if you’re wondering where the connection is).
The New Jerusalem will become the dwelling place of God’s glory (see Rev 21:3). His throne will be there, and Yet I think, how inconvenient that must be for God. For the whole of heaven cannot contain Him and yet He is going to live with us forever in this city – a finely structured place (for a city is nothing if not a structured place). Surely that is a compromise He is making for our sake. Like a husband compromising on where to set up house, He compromises for the sake of His created people – His family.
For His family requires (to our sense of order and for our peace of mind) a much greater degree of structure than He may prefer of Himself – He who made the stars and set them in their orbits, the galaxies and put them on their axis. So He has purposed to bless us with His presence in the confines of a city (OK, a huge, enormously large city, but a city all the same!). At that time we will find we no longer have many of the limitations we have now.
For time will no longer matter so much – we will live forever in bodies that do not age or grow weak. Distance will not matter so much – He will watch over our coming in to the city and going out of the city, and there is no longer any sea to separate us. Money will no longer matter so much – the glory of the nations will be brought into the city, and the city itself is built with unimaginable wealth. What will we do when we have no limitations of money, or time, or distance or frailty?
Surely it will be in the end like it was in the beginning. For God had put man in the garden, to tend and care for it - to apply OUR structure to His creation, that it may be more pleasing to our eyes and appropriate to our sense of order as created beings. That we might cultivate it, care for it and cause it to bring forth blessing to us, that we may give glory to Him.
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