God draws me to the garden day after day! Once I have entered, He speaks to my heart and shares secrets of His kingdom. I have always been drawn to nature and the beauty that is found there, but never have God’s lessons been clearer than when I’m in a garden. For the last two weeks, I have shared God’s lessons from my visit to the Elizabethan Gardens in North Carolina. Click here and here to catch up. Today’s visit is a look at the legacy that God creates in the garden.

legacy garden2

Legacy is anything that is handed down from the past. With that said, how has God established legacy in the garden? Our human lives as we know it started in the garden with Adam and Eve. Their story and how their lives unfolded are our legacy. Our humanness and how we live our lives started with the first choice made by Eve thousands of years ago in the garden. Everyday we live as God’s treasured gift or as a product of the world being pulled toward those things that will not sustain our legacy.

The beauty in the word legacy comes when examining the synonyms. Words such as endowment, gift, or heirloom. God gave us His most precious gift when He sent His son Jesus to teach us, love us and establish His kingdom here on earth. The ultimate gift of grace was given in the sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross for all. This act defined legacy – laying down our lives for others and living our lives for God.

A garden is a treasured gift and everywhere you look you will find legacy – in the flowers that return year after year, in the insects that find a home there and in the creatures that appear when you least expect.

 

flowers

dragonfly

caterpillar

albino squirrel

 

God’s garden can be a metaphor for our lives. The most beautiful gardens are the ones that are life-giving and self-sustaining. The same can be said about our  lives. I want my legacy – my gift – to be life-giving and passed on so that my little piece will be a building block for those I call friends and family. I want God’s love to be present in the garden of my life and for this same gift to be known by those I love and those I have yet to meet. I want the legacy of my life to be self-sustaining because God is at the center. God’s gift – His legacy has already been given and our lives support this precious gift by honoring Him.

As God beckons us to the garden and pursues us relentlessly, remember:

Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. Psalm 23:6

As God sends all we need for our gardens, He reminds us that His Word in us will sustain the garden of our lives.

As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:10-11

May all of our lives become rich in love and grace because we have chosen God to be our focus. May we make life-sustaining choices and water the gardens of our lives with God’s Word and promises.

Blessings,

Mary

Photo credits – Mary Geisen, Passage Through Grace

Dragonfly photo – Mark Gruber – my brother 🙂

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