Jesus Isn't Decaf (By Naomi Meyers)

How amazing must the Garden of Eden have been? God’s personal garden designed to delight Himself and nurture His creations.  My imagination has no trouble envisioning such a place. Lush, green grass, free from quackgrass and clover, created for bare feet and grazing oxen. Breathtakingly gorgeous flowers scattered in wild abandon. Star-gazer Lilies, Orchids, Hyacinths. More variations than one could count or catalog. Colors that dare the rainbow to challenge their hue. Pathways lined with beautiful, healthy trees. Graceful maples. Stalwart oaks. Bowing willows. Stately crepe myrtles. Fragrant magnolias. And the orchard! Row upon row of heavily laden trees bearing fruit of every kind.  Peaches. Apples. Plums. Lemons. Not one dead limb.  No withered leaves. No weeds. No blossom end rot. God’s perfect garden.  More fantastic than my wildest imaginations.  

Pulled from my reverie, I look out the back window at my meager garden boxes. Obviously not Eden! Although the peppers and tomatoes appear to be doing well, there’s a plant damaged beyond repair from a recent hail storm. Its first crop will likely be its last. The herbs, beets, and lettuce are all shots in the dark. The cilantro was looking a bit peaked before I cut it off.  We’ll see if it grows back. The last box is ridiculously, embarrassingly overgrown. The cucumbers are running everywhere. The cantaloupe is fighting for space. And the eternal battle between myself and the zucchini rages on…as does the blossom end rot. Sigh. 

Over the years I have spent hours pouring over articles and methods, reading what causes holes in fruit, white spots on leaves, and yellowing of vines. I’ve been educating myself concerning bigger, better producing plants. I’m still researching. Still learning. Still reading. The one thing I know is that gardening, at least the vegetable kind, requires a lot of self-discipline.  Preparing the beds, boxes, or plots. Planning the layout. Planting. Fertilizing. Watering. Weeding. Waiting. The harvest takes a while to come. Sometimes I get tired and a little disillusioned along the way. I don’t feel like hauling water, staking plants, or weeding. I really don’t care to see what isn’t working out! Yet I rarely allow myself to miss a day of checking. Missing a day isn’t an option. When I miss, things get out of control, begin to rot, or die completely. It’s not worth it. 

Admittedly, God used my garden to point out how often I am tempted to skip or shorten my daily time with Him. Pull back on the Bible reading. Limit the prayer. Stop looking inside myself to see what is flourishing (good or bad), what is failing, and what has already faded away. I don’t always want to know what is in there. I bet you recognize that struggle. You know that reality. You’ve been there too. Maybe you are there right now.  

Some days it takes an immeasurable amount of self discipline to sit down, open the Bible and listen to God speak through His Word.  I don’t know why we feel this way.  Like  the weight of obligation has pulled too heavily at our conscience only to be assuaged by the drudgery of sitting down and reading a Book meant to encourage, enlighten, and edify. Why are we so hesitant?  Is there a better place for comfort? A better book for guidance?  A more worthy tome ensconced on your dust filled shelf in which you will find words of wisdom for your current situation? Of course not. We know this. Yet still we sigh as we sit down to do our “duty”.  

Two days ago I found myself wrestling with some seemingly impossible situations beyond my control. I sat at my desk and turned to the first chapter I planned to read that day, Jeremiah 32.  On the edge of the page, quoting a passage from that very chapter, were the words, “I am the Lord.  Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27 NLT) My heart knew in an instant it was no fluke that I read that chapter on a day I was struggling with impossibilities. I know nothing is too hard for God, but I wanted answers and resolution as soon as possible.  Then I turned to the book I am reading simultaneously, Lamentations. Chapter 3. “Wait quietly for the Lord’s salvation.” (Lamentations 3:26)  Accident? Coincidence? Absolutely not. That was God at work. Everything I needed to find peace in my moment of struggle was right there in front of me. How much greater would my struggle have been without the reminder that God is omnipotent, God is sovereign, and His timing is impeccable?  What if I had chosen not to read my Bible that day?

What if I chose only to read my Bible occasionally or just catch a verse on a Bible app every now and then? What happens when other doctrines that aren’t quite Biblical, but sound good, come along? Would I be swept up in an unreality? Social media keeps us inundated with myriad versions of truth. There’s a quote currently floating around that appears to quote a passage of Scripture, but conveniently leaves out the last bit, thus manipulating the meaning by eliminating the context. The quotation sounds good, even right. It took me several sightings to pick out what bothered me. How easily I could have been swept away on a current of “sounds good” if I wasn’t acquainted with Scripture. If I hadn’t been so intentional about Bible reading and studying, I would have missed it. I almost did. It was close. (Psalm 119:11)

See, just like reading and studying about gardening helps my plants, reading and studying God’s Word helps my soul. It places a hedge around me. Personal knowledge of God’s Word helps us know when what we are seeing, hearing, or doing is untrue, unsound, or un-Godly. It keeps us from sin. It draws us to Christian maturity.  It guards against being pulled from one appealing doctrine to the next. When in doubt or indecision, knowing God’s Word is paramount. How imperative it is to give earnest attention to knowing and remembering God’s Word so we don’t slip away.  Away from truth.  Away from holiness.  Away from God. (Hebrews 2:1) Don’t quit reading. 

And with your reading, pray. Constantly. This is my final, continual, most urgent part of gardening. Every year I pray over my garden–and continue to pray over it. When the wind, hail and driving rain roll in, I pray. When the sun shines, I pray. Every year my garden succeeds.  Those prayers make it happen. My garden wouldn’t make it without those prayers. 

Our souls won’t make it without prayer, either. The Apostle Paul instructs us to pray continually. (I Thessalonians 5:17). Driving to work. Mowing the lawn. Cooking dinner. Folding laundry. Jogging the neighborhood. Pray. Waking up. Falling asleep. Pray. Tempted to worry. (Philippians 4:16) Tempted to fear. Tempted to stray. Pray. Always. (Psalm 105:4)

In a world where we are distracted by so many things, where the siren call of the temporal is so much louder than that of the eternal, may we turn our minds and spirits to seek the Lord. (I Chronicles 16:11) May we be intentional about knowing God, His Word, His voice, His heart. Read. Pray. Learn. Constantly. May we learn to live in a spirit of prayer with a mindset firmly rooted in the truth of God’s Word.  Then, when hail and wind and heavy rains beat on our souls, we can rest in our knowledge of what’s in the Book and trust the Master Gardener to ensure our gardens grow. (Matthew 7:24-25)

They arrived unexpectedly. Droves of iridescent winged, whirring devourers descending from the heavens in a terrifying cloud of wrangling destruction. Some thought it looked like a cloud of snow, but that would be unusual since it was July in Kansas. Over some regions, the sun was blocked out for hours, reappearing only to illuminate horrific carnage in the land below.  Crops were ravaged, cupboards ransacked, curtains and clothing ruined.  

Nothing was safe. The animals were harassed. Sheep’s wool eaten from their backs.  Horses’ harnesses devoured from their heads. General havoc reigned as the locusts–those little, insignificant hoppers–had their say.  

And have their say they did. They stayed for days, single-mindedly wreaking havoc and terror. Farmers tried everything to destroy the locusts. At least everything available in 1874. Fires, exploding gunpowder, shotgun blasts and beating at them with boards or farm tools all failed to dispel the pests. Some ingenious folks created a device to harvest the locusts. It failed. Another mastermind invented a suction machine to vacuum them up into a bag, but it worked only marginally. All avenues of defense were useless. The locusts were eating their year. 

Eventually the nasty pests moved on, but the damage left in their wake was devastating.  Families didn’t have food to see them through the winter. Many were forced to return to the East, their dreams of a new life in the West dying as the locusts moved to the next stop. Others were held in place by debts. Some couldn’t bear to leave the loved ones they’d buried on the frontier behind. Still others simply refused to give up, called in resources from the federal and territorial governments, family and friends, even mortgaged their properties.      

The devastation was far-reaching. Not everyone survived. Neighbors tried to help neighbors.  Some tried to provide food by hunting and trapping. Others gathered old buffalo bones and horns from the prairie to sell at railroad hubs. Yet entire families died for want of food. Things were desperate. 

Finally, good news came. Aid came from the East. Seeds, money, and supplies arrived. The federal government made exceptions to the residency requirements so landowners could leave to work and better their situation without worry that their land would be lost to another.  Soldiers distributed coats, boots, shoes, blankets, food and other items to families across four states and two territories. And when the spring of 1875 came and the multitudes of eggs laid by locusts the previous year started to hatch, God sent a snowstorm and hard frost that killed most of them and allowed farmers time to replant their crops.  (1) Because when it is all said and done, His promise forever stands, “…I will restore the years the locust has eaten…” (Joel 2:25) 

I’ve never seen locusts come in droves, destroying everything in their wake. You likely haven’t either.  We are, however, living through a pandemic that is wreaking similar havoc on our lives.  Like the settlers of 1874-75, people are losing their livelihoods, savings, stability, even their sanity. Some have lost their lives. It has been devastating. For businesses, families, educational institutions, the year seems ruined. Although we are starting to poke our heads out of the proverbial turtle shell to which we ran, recovery seems a distant dream. If the memes on social media are to be believed, the virus has eaten our year.  

Admittedly, it feels that way.  We are nearly halfway through 2020.  The year feels a bit of a waste. It makes me wonder if we’ve spent our quarantine in proper pursuits.  Bogged down in the worry, anxiety and fear the whole mess has brought, have we vowed to believe that God is still Sovereign?  Have we sought Him more?  Have we intentionally cast our cares on Him? Do we trust Him? Is our hope for the future in God’s power or human machinations? 

I’m sitting here on my back porch with my Bible, coffee, and computer. The sky is cloudy, somewhat stormy. The wind is blowing. My mind and fingers are typing.  A storm is raging in my heart. Two years ago God made me a promise. He didn’t give me a time frame. He simply promised. In December, we got a phone call that seemed like He had finally fulfilled His promise. (Not a moment too soon, in my opinion.) Then, last night, we received an e-mail explaining that because of some effects of the virus, our answer had been waylaid. It might be another year or more in the making. The virus ate my answer. I’d be lying if I said my faith isn’t a little shaky right now.  

Somewhere, on another porch or maybe at a kitchen table, someone else is bent over a smaller than usual bank statement trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage, the electric, the water, and still feed the kids. The effects of the virus strike again. Behind a dimly lit desk, at the back of a storefront darkened by stay-at-home orders, someone is desperately juggling numbers, hoping against hope they can ride out the closure and keep their business afloat. The virus takes another bite. All around us we see and feel its devastation. Children are hungry because the meals they normally get at school are no longer available. They are enduring abuse that could be caught if teachers, some of the main reporters to abuse agencies, were still seeing them in classrooms every day. Where things have been tight and frustrating before, the virus has made them untenable.  It feels like the virus is eating our year.  

In sympathy, empathy, and camaraderie, my heart wrestles with these issues in our lives.  My eyes overflow. I find myself raising my tear dampened face to the sky and crying, “God, aren’t You still sovereign?” The answer is immediate, echoing back words from Exodus 3:14, “I am.” And I know it is true. I also know Malachi 3:6 is true. God does not change. Ever. So as I read how God rescued His people from horrendous circumstances through a series of wildly unheard of events–bloody water, hordes of frogs, gnats, flies, dying animals, seeping boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and death–I also remind myself that God does not change.  (Exodus 1-14) He is planning a rescue, a respite, a restoration. Just like He did for the Israelites. Just like He did for the settlers in 1875. God is still at work and we can trust Him. 

We can trust that our concerns matter to God. Our children matter. Our circumstances matter. (Matthew 6:25-33)  He wants us to bring these concerns to Him. (I Peter 5:7) He wants us to trust Him to hold us up and bring us through. (Psalm 55:22) He wants us to put all our eggs in His basket.  Our burgeoning hope, our shaky faith, our wavering confidence must be in Christ alone. (Psalm 20:7, I Chronicles 5:20) Because God is still Sovereign, He never changes, and His promises to His people forever stand.  (I Chronicles 29:11-12, Hebrews 13:8, Numbers 23:19)  

So a virus tried to eat our year. Are we going to let it?  Or are we going to look back at all the tough times God has brought us through, gather the last vestiges of our faith, and step trustingly into a future secured by our Sovereign, trustworthy, unchanging God?

(1) Lyons, Chuck (6 May 20). 1874: The Year of the Locust. Retrieved from https://www.historynet.com/1874-the-year-of-the-locust.htm