Welcome to Garden Theology: Will You Garden with Us?
Have you ever stepped out on a rainy day into the garden and just smelt the abundance of earth and dirt? In the cool of autumn, there’s a chill in the air, a freshness. The aroma is thick with roses and gardenias—and if you’re lucky a tomato will have ripened before the first frost. (Mine are always late to the season.)
This is the atmosphere that God is ushering us into: a fresh new season, a bountiful harvest.
If you’re familiar with the Bible, you will know of its many stories:
The Garden of Eden
Noah and the Ark
Jonah and the Whale
Moses parts the Red Sea
Jesus as the Tree of Life
The natural world runs thick through its pages, story after story. In fact, it’s impossible to separate the natural world from the supernatural in the Bible. It’s all connected.
An Overgrown Garden
After a season of barrenness, I found myself drawn to the gardens in the Bible, expectant for a breakthrough. I prayed for rain and saw drought. I prayed for harvest and had famine. At the time, I thought it was because God didn’t love me, that I was unworthy of love—and therefore, good things.
What actually happened is I never planted seeds, so there was nothing to grow. I never believed God could bring the rain, so it never came. My unbelief and self-loathing were weeds choking my own garden, my spirit, even my body.
The amount of anxiety I experienced every day was so unreal.
But God had mercy on me like He always does on His children. And through supernatural healing and a great group of women, I found myself back into the fold, back into His presence, back into the Church. God never left me, I had just run really far away, stopped, looked around, and said “where did you go?”
From repentance abounded grace and mercy and a harvest I have not been able to stop reaping. Rain for days, the kind that makes you want to snuggle into a blanket and drink hot tea. A glorious aroma of fruits and flowers, an array of flora and fauna.
After leaving my old barren ways behind and stepping into the fullness of joy, God asked me to sow a new seed, to plant a new garden.
I was sitting at a conference at my home church, The Belonging Co, and felt a deep stirring in me to pursue my dreams again. Not by my own will and strength, but through the blessing of God. To not be like Abraham and force my own child into this world, but to wait for my own Isaac-like blessing.
This is that dream. Garden Theology.
What is Garden Theology?
A “garden theology” is simply how I describe my newfound relationship with God, His Son Jesus, and His Holy Spirit.
“Then [Jesus] said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Who is your harvest? Where are your fields?
If you’re a follower of Jesus, then you’ve been called into the garden. Are you ready? Are you prepared?
If we’re all being honest, we’re not really.
Not fully surrendered to God’s plan. Not fully equipped to make disciples. Not fully immersed in the Word.
So with my own shortcomings in mind, I decided to create a space to develop myself and those walking alongside me into harvesters, gardeners.
I’ve been working on my own backyard garden recently (really just one giant garden of mint because it took over all my other plants).
What I’ve learned is there is a wealth of knowledge I will never fully comprehend about growing things: some from experience, some from experts, and some from research. I will never know everything about gardening. There are simply too many plants and ecosystems and environments and insects—it’s a lifelong learning experience.
God is the same way.
Every time I return to His Word, I learn something new, something fresh. He’s asking all of us if we would enter into His garden, sit at His feet, and listen a little more. Experience a little more. Get our hands dirty!
Every season, He is growing something new in me. Recently, I learned that the best strawberries come from the first fruits of the season. Expert gardeners take the best strawberries, and instead of eating them right away like me, they sow those seeds back into the garden (through a tasty strawberry juice) to keep the plants from getting old over time.
What a great analogy for our walk with Christ!
Garden with Us
So what does it look like to be a gardener-in-training?
We’re here to help you:
Cultivate your first fruits
Sow into your spiritual gifts
Make disciples of all nations
I’m not sure where this will grow or how God will move, but I know He will. Like the runners on a strawberry plant, I will let God pick the best places to root and replant when needed.
We’ve got some devotionals and learning guides on the way. In the meantime, be sure to check out our blog and our herbarium to dive straight into the Word of God. We’ll be talking about how God can turn a grave into a garden, answer some hard questions about invasive species (sin), and pull up the roots of the Enemy that are choking God’s plan for you.
Gardening isn’t easy; it’s messy. Sometimes we prune the wrong branch, squash unripened fruit, or plant during the wrong season. Even still, the garden never stops growing. Something always makes it through the frost.
I hope you will bring your gloves, trowel, and Bible—and follow along.
Peace with you,
Elise
ELISE LAKEY
Elise is a writer, artist, and photographer based out of Nashville, TN. She’s the founder of Garden Theology and seeks to help all gardeners-in-training come to their full purpose in God. When she’s not writing, you can find her playing in the dirt, snuggling her cats, or weaving tapestries.
