Cultivating The Garden Within
ETIW Weekly Newsletter: February 10, 2025
Close your eyes and listen - or - go for a walk
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Newsletter reading with soothing birds, river streams, and relaxing yet contemplative piano music.
Into The Secret Garden
Written December 14th, 2023
I used to host guided meditations during COVID. Back at the start of my “spiritual journey”, when I was stuck between New Age and the word of God but didn’t know better. Although I was still working on solidifying the effects of God’s teachings over my life, I have no regrets about that season of my life. Even then, I know God saw my heart, He saw my desire for Him and His truth.
At those meditations, I would allow myself to be led by my intuition. Often, the same visual concept would arise...one of a garden.
I would gently paint a picture for myself and the participants, leading them to allow their imagination to show them the inner landscape of their hearts through a Garden only they could see. Each person’s garden was unique, with different plants and trees of whatever their spiritual mind desired to conjure up.
The trees and plants were anything but ordinary. Instead, they were meant to be personalized physical manifestations of wisdom, love, peace, acceptance, healing, etc. A flower could be as tall as a tree and a tree as small as a flower.
Come in, I’ll give you a little sneak peek into my internal landscape.
One of the plants I have in my garden is the Flower of Peace. Mine is made of colorful pastel petals with crystals in the center. It’s as tall as a tree and as wide as a large bush. There is a riverbed that cuts through the various hills and landscapes. Beneath a large weeping willow tree lays my majestic pet lion named Wisdom. When I’m in here, I often spend time lying atop her fur. Together, we soak in the sun, listen to the birds chirp and butterflies flutter, and watch the various plants and trees sway in the wind as the river gently flows around us.
When I first made this garden, it was at the peak of my connection with God...
before I fell into false teachings that were leading me to believe I was God. It was truly paradise. As time passed and I became too occupied by life’s shifts to continue hosting the group visual meditations, I stopped going to my inner garden.
Years passed, and my spiritual journey went through many unexpected detours, many of which led to great pain, fear, anxiety, and doubt in God’s goodness.
When I began to truly seek God again for who He was, rather than what I wanted Him to give me, it became easier to ignore the voice of the enemy and follow Him out of my Dark Forest. I had unknowingly strayed from my garden. One day, I felt prompted by the spirit to look into my inner garden once again. I found it barren and dry, begging for life. There were no butterflies or birds; the majestic flowers and trees had faded into obscurity.
I knew in my heart what the Holy Spirit was trying to tell me.
“This Garden cannot lie to you. It is our point of contact, and you know it has been neglected for far too long. Welcome back. Let’s bring you back to life together.”
From that day on,
I would occasionally be reminded of my Garden, and each time I would see new growth, the muted brownish-green grass was replaced by tiny new blades. The river began to flow once more. Things were coming back to life.
Today, I was reminded of that Garden as I opened up my Bible after having a softly intimate day where I allowed myself to lean on God in both the big and small things. And I felt his nearness. Whether I was looking for an item or playing a challenging game on my phone, I found myself talking to God as my loving parent and best friend, and each time, the answer would come to me within moments of me calling out for His input. After turning my back on my habitual sin, my spirit’s ability to truly feel his presence and love has strengthened.
When I opened the Bible, I was led to Isaiah 32.
It is a chapter filled with metaphors of barrenness and prosperity and the tragically hopeful and peacefully reassuring path that awaits those who choose to stick with God.
“ The fortress will be abandoned, the noisy city deserted, citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever, the delight of donkeys, a pasture for flocks. Till the spirit is poured on us from on high. and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest. The Lord’s justice will dwell in the desert, his righteousness lives in the fertile field.” Isaiah 32 Verses 14- 16
The Lord has continued to dwell with me in my desert. My ability to hear and feel him more clearly now is not because he wasn’t there before. In truth, it was my willingness to continue to engage in destructive patterns that tried to take over my life, that made me hide in the garden just like Adam and Eve did. Until I wandered into the dark forests and could not hear his clear instructions anymore.
When I was in my Garden, The lord would come to me...
and tell me “Stop doing this thing, it will only bring you pain, delay, and suffering” But eventually I would listen to the lies of the enemy who would come in and say “It’s not a big deal, everyone else is doing it. Come on, just once more, just now and then, why is God such a joy-kill? It’s all in your head anyway; just do what you want, eat from the tree.” Until I would find myself becoming confused, lazy, and discouraged about my dreams.
Each time I called out to God to help me, he would rush to my side.
Until the cycle would repeat. And so I found myself increasingly in the valley of the shadow of death (psalm 23).
But because of Jesus, we are no longer banished to remain in the valley.
Still, eventually, I knew I had to choose a side. I could no longer be lukewarm. I either had to be hot or cold (revelations 3:16). Furthermore, I do not want to live my life with regret, nor do I wish to continue grieving His Holy Spirit. I do not wish for my plants to die and for my river to dry up. I do not wish to be locked out of our heavenly meeting place.
The garden within each of us is holy ground, and it must be tended to regularly.
In John 7:38, Jesus says, Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” I wish to feel his rivers of life flowing out from the garden of my heart into the world around me.
Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and call upon the Lord,
ask Him to lead you to your inner landscape. What do you see? More importantly, who is the Groundskeeper? The Caring Gardener and the Good Shepherd? Or the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy?
