When Humility is Like Rain Water to a Garden

I enjoy having a nice garden.  I do not have one this year, because of the rain and other things going on.  I have had beautiful and productive gardens in the past.  The best year was the year I had a soil sample done to see if anything was lacking in the soil for growing vegetables.  After getting the test results, I applied the recommended fertilizer and lime to the soil.  I prepared the seed bed, purchased the desired plants and seeds, and spent my Saturday  planting.


Have you ever planted a garden in the spring?  The smell of the turned over soil is so refreshing.  The feeling of accomplishment you get when you have spent a day of hard labor and stand back visualizing the anticipated results.  I don't know about you, but I would be like a kid at Christmas each day, checking to see if anything I had planted was coming up.  When everything is about 2 or 3 inches tall and the tomato plants are staked, the once bare spot of ground comes alive.  Each morning I would drink my coffee out by the garden to admire its progress and its beauty.


Having a beautiful garden is like being a shepherd over a flock of sheep.  You have to watch over it each day.  You have to be very vigilant and persistent in keeping the weeds and pest from taking over. I would walk over the garden once a day, chopping out the weeds as they first sprouted.  Letting them grow to maturity would be disastrous in 2 ways.  Weeds rob your plants of moisture, and if left to mature they insure an abundance of weeds for your next season.


One year I did all of the above.  The garden looked great.  It began producing vegetables then something happened that I could not control.  The weather turned very hot and the rains stopped.  I started trying to water everything, but I just couldn't keep up with the heat.  The garden needed a slow, steady rain to replenish the moisture in the ground and to cool everything down.  We didn't get it.


My beautiful plants started wilting and then dying. My enthusiasm was overtaken by the heat and drought and I gave up on the garden for that year, hoping for a better one the next year.  I had done everything I could do to have a good garden.  The one thing I couldn't do to help each plant produce to its fullest potential was give it the needed rain each week.  Without the rain the garden dried up and died.


Now, to the point I am trying to make.  I want you to think of our country as the above garden. We work hard each day to have a good country.  Some depend on the government (fertilizer), no pun intended, to make it grow.  We think our politicians can accomplish this for us.  Many think of the need for more jobs (seeds) so our citizens can prosper by earning a living to provide for our families, (bear fruit).  I and others are concerned with our country not believing in God and obeying His commandments (drought). This has led to sins in our society that are an abomination to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  The consequence is a country (garden) that will not  produce good morals (fruit) this year, nor next year as well, and many years after that.  Our grandchildren will inherit a godless and secular country(barren garden spot with only weeds) without the knowledge of God (rain) to bring them out of it.  What do we do?


Has this happened to a nation before? I ask you at this time to pick up your Bible and read Deuteronomy 8:11-20.  Notice the last verse of this chapter.  As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you will not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.   Is this happening to us? Has our country left God and is she not obedient to His word anymore? Do we have a solution? Are the solutions electing the right people, appointing conservative judges for the supreme court, putting prayer back in school, teaching God's word in public schools, or making more laws to control the hate, greed, and pride? An Absolute No!!!


Here is what we need to do.  Just like I couldn't make it rain on my garden, protecting it from drought, I cannot make our country better.  I can't make the sensual sins, greed, hatred or godlessness go away.  But I know who can.


A few years ago there was a Pew poll publish showing that 78 percent of the citizens in our country were Christians.  That being the case, 78 percent of this country are called by God's name.  Why is that important?  This means that approximately 78 percent of this country have been given the solution (they each have a Bible or can get one) to bring this country back to be blessed by God again. Each of us can do one simple thing, if we want a great country for our grandchildren to inherit.  The simple thing that everyone called by God's name can do is:  If My people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 0(2 Chronicles 7:14, NKJV)


If I will humble myself; that is surrender; be brought low; allow to be brought into subjection; show a consciousness of my defects or short comings; and be not proud; the first step God ask me to do has been taken.  What does all this mean?  I will give up my ideology, selfishness, pride, self righteousness, sins, shortcomings, defects, anything else that rules me, and allow God to have the keys to my life.


Why should I humble myself before God.  Can you think of any greater being, power, or creator to be humbled by?  Are you thinking of being humbled by mankind and his wisdom?  You can forget that.  That's why we are in this mess to start with.


Next, He says to pray.  We need to make sure we do not regard iniquity in our hearts when we pray, because He will not hear us. (Psalm 66:18) He then says seek my face.  If you or I are harboring sin in our life we will not seek His face. We will be like Adam and Eve trying to hide from Him when they sinned.  We need to be able to confidently and boldly come before His throne as His children, so we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)


As God's children we need to turn (Repent) from the wicked ways  of the world we are hanging on to.  (1 John 2:15-16)  We cannot be a friend of the world and change anything.  We need God's help, and we will not get it by wanting to be a friend of the world. (James 4:4)


When we do these things, what comes next may be something we have never seen in our lifetime. God says, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.  When we, as God's people, do this, God will work a work in our days we have never seen. Look at the response Habakkuk received when he cried out to God. God answers  Habakkuk's cry in Habakkuk 1:5,  Look among the nations and watch- Be utterly astounded!  For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you. (NKJV) We have to have the faith He can do it again.


What would God heal our land from?  What do we need to be healed from?  What about killing over a million babies a year?  What about families that have been divided by adultery and fornication? What about teaching our children that God didn't really create the world as God said He did? What about all of the works of the Devil that have created strongholds in this country?


Doing what we are doing now is not working.  We need to do it God's way.  What God tells us to do will only work if we follow that first step of humbling ourselves before the Lord.  We are told this also in 1 Peter 5:6 and James 4:10.  When I started studying humility and then being humble, a peace came over me.  Not seeing myself better than anyone else has paved the way to humbling myself before God.  I don't care who you are, what color you are, what sins you are doing, God loves you and me equally.  We are both so special to Him that His only Son, God the Son, humbled himself, came from heaven, lived a sinless life in the flesh, and died for us, so we might be saved.  All we have to do is to humble ourselves before God, believe and do what He commands us to do.


Do you see how our humility before God can be compared to a rain on my garden?  It lets God work with  and through His people to show there is a God in heaven.  We also are then able to fulfill for Him all He has created us to be as His children. Just like good rains on a garden can produce a bumper crop.


I have used God's word the last few post to  give us some solutions to get our country back to where she needs to be.  We can either keep grumbling about it and wait for the government to do something about it or use His solutions to change our hearts first.  Ok,  I want to practice what I preach.  I have humbled myself before God. I am praying fervently for our land and seeking His face.  I have let go of my pride and self righteous arrogance, and I have started loving as God loves.  I delight in His words and want to show God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit that I love them by keeping their commands.


Do you trust God at His word?  Are you concerned about the state we are going to leave this country in for our grandchildren?  Will they grow up, die, and miss heaven because no one was around to teach them the gospel of Christ? Will they have a faith like David to slay their giants?  They won't if the people called by God's name do nothing.  Come on friends. We can do it.  God has always been there for us. He is with us, for us, and has power we don't have. Let's humble ourselves before Him and ask Him every day to help us do it.


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Thanks for reading and all the comments.


Rick