The Planting of the Lord

UV 833-10,000 The Planting of the Lord Isa 27:3 I the LORD do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. The Lord is our keeper. He is like a gardener and yet no gardener is like Him for the gardener would water his plants for some time and return only after a considerable interval when he expects the plants to be dry and thirsty. But the Divine Gardener waters us every moment. He has installed a kind of eternal drip irrigation system that keeps us spiritually moist. The drops keep falling and penetrate to our very heart and make it soft to do the bidding of the Lord. The water is a metaphor for the Word of God, for the thoughts the Lord brings up in our hearts and minds all the time to give us hope, strength and encouragement. The Word is like an eternal spring that never dries up. It flows not at a superficial lip level but from deep within our hearts and minds. Without this we would go the way of the world and perish. Before we encountered and received Jesus into our hearts, we were like the thorns and bramble. But once we received the gospel and believed in its truth, we get grafted into the stem and root of Jesus. It is at this juncture that the Lord God of Israel takes responsibility as Gardener for us. The Eternal Gardener not only feeds and waters us, He fences us with His love and care. A normal gardener would just put a fence around his plants, tend the garden during the day and leave for his night’s rest. He leaves it to time and chance. But the Lord fences us with His presence and His angels all the time both night and day. We however cannot take His care and nurture casually or for granted. Every ounce of our gratitude should reflect in inches of growth over time. We need to be rooted in the soil of His nourishment. The SAP or spiritual attitudes for progress should flow through us all the time and nourish even the extremities of our lives. We should bear fruit in season and out of season. When the Divine Gardener looks for fruit, we should not be like the accursed fig tree that bore no fruit for the Master. Bearing fruit implies that we should bear witness of His goodness, faithfulness, reality, truthfulness, greatness, grandeur and amazing incomprehensible love. For we are indeed a planting of the Lord in order to reveal His splendour. Prateep V Philip