Coming to the Garden

 

 

This blog is not the same as others you have seen on the website, but it does beckon you to bring the cup of your sorrows into the Garden where Jesus is. He calls us to come – in the midst of our life’s challenges, financial ones included. On this Good Friday, as we reflect on the life, suffering, death and resurrection of our Saviour, remember He invites us in our weariness to come and exchange our burden for His easy yoke.

I come to the Garden. But I am not alone.

There is no dew on the roses. It is evening. Dusk is descending. I am threatened by sleep – the sleep of sorrow.

“The blood sweat is gone. The Cup is empty. The enemy is crushed. The wind blows through the Garden of Life where the Lord beckons me to return.”

Hardship, discouragement, bad news seems to invade from every corner of my life. The pressure has been building for days, weeks, months. And the circumstances have come to be too much.

I long to escape. I long to hide – I am collapsing on the inside. But there is nowhere to go that I can find relief.

Except here.

He has called to me, with that familiar, gentle, loving voice I can no longer resist. He invites me into His Garden – His Garden of sorrow – to teach me here, to remind me, I am not alone. He has walked the road before me, and He welcomes me with my tears. He is acquainted with grief. He knows mine.

He directs me. I fall on my knees. But it is not an immediate falling. Somehow, it has happened in slow motion – disbelief, confusion, heartache pressing on my heart.

But I fall. And then I hear Him. As He once spoke in that Garden to three followers, He speaks to me: “Arise. Pray…So you won’t fall into temptation. So you won’t stop believing and trusting Me.”

Arise? But the pressure is so great!

I arise in my mind alone. I just want to sleep. That sleep of sorrow that took the three followers. I want it to take me. But sleep is only an escape and I resist.

“Pray, dear one. Pray. When the pressure is great. Pray.”

And so.

I pray. And for an instant I see His sweat of blood trickling down His brow. The pressure releases and He is on His knees next to Me. Crying out with Me. He hears. He knows.

And so.

I pray. And for an instant I hear Him say: “Take this Cup from Me. Take this Cup…But not My will. Yours.” He lifts His head and He stares right back at me. His eyes. Boring right through mine, into my soul. And I know, He knows. It feels like too much to bear. But He helps me say, “Not my will, but Yours. Yours alone, Father.”

And it is then I understand that in this life, in this Garden, I am learning from Him. I am learning to conform to His will. And I am learning what it means to be free. Free from my own flesh. Free to love Him and to love others as He loves.

In the Garden. As I sit and wait and pray and watch, I am learning to align myself with
His love,
His Words,
His Ways,
His Will.

Instead of the sleep of sorrow, I am learning to rise and pray. He is in the Garden with me. If I sleep I give into the temptations of doubt, fear and unbelief. If I sleep I give into the risk that my heart will harden, and I will not trust Him, and I will not find rest. I am learning to stop fighting the circumstances that swirl like a vortex around me.

And so.

I pray. And for an instant I see Him stand as the serpent rises to bite his heel. Christ raises His foot and crushes the head of the slithering creature. And I hear the Father’s voice from that first Garden…

“You will strike His heel, but He will crush your head.”

Two Gardens.

One Fallen. One redeemed. The enemy is crushed and I come freely, in and out of the Garden to rise up and pray, conforming to His will, finding my Victor who stands and kneels with me in the storms.

The blood sweat is gone. The Cup is empty. The enemy is crushed. The wind blows through the Garden of Life where the Lord beckons me to return.

To taste,
To see,
To hear,
To drink the Cup of His will and His forgiveness,
To eat the Bread of His sustaining life.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

 

Rebecca van Noppen is Communications Director at More Than Enough. She is also a teacher, home educator, writer, and woman who loves to pray. She works alongside her husband, Financial Coach David van Noppen, to help others find hope and freedom in Christ on their financial journeys.