Have You Met the Gardener?

This summer I was asked by a young man to show him how I knew there was a God?  I sat there for a couple of minutes and told him to just look around him, whom did he think made the beautiful day that we were enjoying? 

His immediate answer to me was, “Mother Nature.”  I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.  I wanted to know what proof he had that there was a Mother Nature.  He looked at me and I could see in his eyes that he was very serious when he told me he heard and saw her on television.

When all this was taking place we were sitting under the awning of the motorhome.  I stepped out, looked around, and said only God could of made such a beautiful sky, trees, green grass, etc.  He did not think that was enough proof.  I asked him if I could have a little time to think about his question and I would have an answer for him.  I spent the next couple of hours asking our heavenly Father to show me what to say so that he might understand that God is the creator of all…including him. 

I kept looking at the things around me and all I could see was wonder and beauty.  Then the Lord lay it upon my heart that he was the one and only true gardener.  In Genesis 1:1 it says: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”  It was just the beginning of his taking care of us.  From nothing he made all this.

But if we read further along, in verses 11 and 12, we find the grasses, trees, seeds and fruit yielding trees…every flower, plant, shrub, and food item is a result of the creation.  What did God do with all these things? He made a beautiful garden for Adam and Eve to live in; there they lived happily with God until they let sin take over their lives.

God continued to use gardens for wondrous events. When he went to pray for all of mankind, we find him in the garden. In John 18:1 it says “When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into which he entered, and his disciples.” (KJV)  Here he wept and prayed among God’s beauty for each and every one of us.

Next they took one of God’s creations and hung His Son upon it. WHERE HE BLED AND DIED FOR OUR SINS.   Keep searching the Word, and we find that he was laid in a tomb carved in the rock in a garden. How do we know it was in a garden?  It was surrounded by beauty.  Can you show me one cemetery today that is in an ugly place?  I don’t know of one.  But when we see pictures of the tomb, it is in the center of a garden still today.

More proof is in John 20:11-15.  Mary Magdalene stood weeping in the garden after finding the tomb empty.  Verse 15 reads, “Jesus said unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?  She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”

Every time God shows his love for us, it is surrounded by the beauty he has created.  If this is not proof enough that there is a God, try to create something from nothing yourself! You can’t.  Scientist have been trying for years and they all must start with existing atoms and molecules and build from there.

I am not sure if I showed this young man the true existence of God.  But I know in my life there is a gardener and creator who enables me to plant seeds and watch them grow and multiply for him. Are you working for the gardener?

Claire Laterza