Cultivating a Garden

I love Donald Miller. I love his style of speaking, his thoughts on faith and the way he approaches the world. Recently, as a Sunday community, we've been listening to a few of his talks. This last talk — entitled "Free Market Jesus" — was a look at the church, culture, and how the two have been intertwined.

It's been a fascinating time of listening and thinking. I was moved by the way he went through history, and how it's impacted the church. And I also had a few other takeaways.

* We're Fathered to Maturity. This was one of his points near the end of the talk, and it's a powerful idea. We have a Heavenly Father who, much like our Earthly fathers, tries to help us reach maturity — in this case maturity in Christ. That doesn't mean granting our every wish or demand, it means patience, correction, and guidance. That's a beautiful picture of faith and the life of faith.

* We are a Garden that needs to be cultivated. One of my favorite things that Miller talks about is the place conversion has in the story of our lives. Often, he notes, people in the church try to paint conversion as the end of the third act, where we get resolution. This leads us to a notion that once we accept Jesus, our story moves to the happily ever after. It's a false narrative, and one that does more harm than good.

Really, our point of conversion is like the end of the first act, it's the turning point into the crux of the story — which will have high points and low points. That's reality. Becoming a Christian doesn't ensure a perfect and conflict-free life, it just puts God in focus and sets your life on the right track.

Similarly, we can't expect to plant a seed and see fruit in an hour. That doesn't happen in gardening. It requires cultivation and continued hard work. Our lives are like a garden, and they require time and effort to produce fruit.

It starts when we hear the Lord's call and respond, "Here I Am Lord."