• Home
  • About
  • Books
    • My Father is the Gardener
    • God’s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • News
  • Plant Guide
    • Plant Index – God’s Word for Gardeners
    • Plant Research
    • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from God’s Word
  • Contact
  • Search

Mobile Menu

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • My Father is the Gardener
    • God’s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • News
  • Plant Guide
    • Plant Index – God’s Word for Gardeners
    • Plant Research
    • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from God’s Word
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Garden In Delight

Grow your garden, flourish your faith

Header Left

  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • My Father is the Gardener
    • God’s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • News
  • Plant Guide
    • Plant Index – God’s Word for Gardeners
    • Plant Research
    • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from God’s Word
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • My Father is the Gardener
    • God’s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • News
  • Plant Guide
    • Plant Index – God’s Word for Gardeners
    • Plant Research
    • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from God’s Word
  • Contact
  • Search

Garden Tools in Hand

Home » Garden Moments » Garden Tools in Hand
garden tools in hand

by Shelley S. Cramm In: Garden Moments on Jul 19, 2018

Garden tools serve as handy metaphors for the disciplines of the faith. Just as tools help cultivate a garden, faith disciplines help us nurture a relationship with God. Though often they amplify the heart cry for God to fix things! Likewise, today’s featured tools help highlight and reinforce the cultivating, nurturing, coaxing, waiting, tending nature of growing a garden and growing a personal relationship the Lord.

Engaging God through “tools”—prayer, work ethic, humility, thanksgiving, to name a few featured in God’s Word for Gardeners Bible—starts out with things we can do, ways to be useful, productive, and take charge, seemingly in control. That is, we use the practices in attempts to grip, grab, and get a hold of ourselves…and of God… by our own hand. It is a good starting place, at least, coming to God and believing He has hope and possibility for difficult, dead-end circumstances or well-intended ambition.

However, in His mercy, God doesn’t leave us in such a stance, with such a mindset, as if we are the ones to direct, as if we can use Him to fix our problems and struggles, or to get ahead. The beauty of this metaphor is that while prayer, humility, works service, etc. can take on their own importance or ritual—our ability in these can carry us far enough to distract from growing a reliance and relationship with God—garden tools would never be confused with a garden itself.

ultimate plant clips are handy tools for tying up vines
Ultimate Plant Clips from Global Garden Friends (or little twisty thingies as I call them!) are invaluable for the cucumber-melon gardener, and I am sure green bean and sweet pea growers would agree. They are quick, handy help to tie up vines to trellis’, support cages, etc. I keep a supply at hand in a nearby garden pot, their color a fun accent in the garden. www.globalgardenfriends.com

Yes, it is obvious a weeder, snipper, or plant clip is not a garden; yet it may be obscure that a routine prayer or generous, charitable act is ungrounded in a relationship with God. Be on guard that as clay we don’t usurp the potter!

You turn things upside down. You think the clay is equal to the potter. You think that something that is made can tell the one who made it, “You did not make me!” This is like a pot telling its maker, “You know nothing.”
Isaiah 29:16 ERV

Full of grace, the Lord champions our turn toward Him and pardons our attempt to contain or dictate to Him, or act on His behalf—a reversal of the right relationship.

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! … How gracious he will be when you cry for help!
Isaiah 30:18-19 NIV

He draws us through waiting, mostly, to grow our trust, companionship, and adoration in Him—to deepen and sweeten an intimate relationship.

micro snips by Corona Tools help harvest herbs from the home garden
ComfortGEL® Micro Snips from Corona Tools are my favorite herb companion, a perfect scale for harvesting the home garden, helping taste and see goodness get quickly to table in garden fresh food. I actually keep them in the kitchen drawer, not the garden workbench, to dash out for a clipping at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. www.coronatoolsusa.com

I pray to God—my life a prayer—and wait for what he’ll say and do. My life’s on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.
Psalm 130:5-6 The Message

Ironically, disciplines expose our neediness: where we sought strength in hand, soon weakness disturbs. The practices of prayer, service works, fasting or other humility processes will move us across the threshold of DIY (do-it-yourself) strength through unsettling dishevelment if we work at them long enough. Paul pleaded (i.e. prayed) through his struggle with a “thorn in his flesh,” before the invention of thorn strippers, of course!

…I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:7-9 NIV

See Paul grow into acceptance of God’s way, of Christ’s presence lavishing his own, and of the lush land of God’s reliable love. The goal of faith practices is not to be a disciplined follower; the goal is to love the Lord.

And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us.
1 John 4:16 AMPC

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:5 NIV

The Original Weeder & Cultivator from CobraHead
The Original Weeder & Cultivator from CobraHead is a well-crafted, all-around credit to garden care and puttering. Pull up weeds, break up soil for better saturation, and rough up mulch for a more attractive appearance – all with the Cobrahead in hand. Also gain the extra strength needed to tug at spent plants, like the pansies and violas finally too hot to flourish…an end-of-season essential! www.cobrahead.com

May we let garden tools lead us to trust in God’s deep, abiding love. Eventually, in season after season, we learn to come to the Lord with nothing in hand, expecting not to become handy in faith, but simply to come.

“Come!” say the Spirit and the Bride.
Whoever hears, echo, “Come!”
Is anyone thirsty? Come!
All who will, come and drink,
Drink freely of the Water of Life!
Revelation 22:17 The Message

Gods Word for Gardeners book in mustard greens

For more devotions on faith practices, see the Garden Tools section of God’s Word for Gardeners Bible, beginning on page a-17

Find a thorough, formal examination of spiritual disciplines at www.authenticdiscipleship.org

A heartfelt thank you to CobraHead, Corona Tools, and Global Garden Friends for your generosity to GWA: The Association of Garden Communicators…join us in Chicago this August to personally meet these innovative, amazing companies! #GWA2018

Photo Credits:
©2018 Shelley S. Cramm

FacebookTwitterShare

Related Posts

You may be interested in these posts from the same category.

Forest of Praise

grapevines remind of Jesus' proclamation, I am the Vine

I am the True Vine

joy in drought? don't ask these leeks, ask the Lord!

Joy in Drought

entwining tendrils of a grapevine

Entwining Hearts

Seedtime and Harvest

Artemisia 'Powis Castle' catches a ray of sunshine in the Days of Awe

Days of Awe

two sheep stand for the wool that is good for the garden!

Father, Gardener & Good Shepherd

first fruit spied on a fig tree inspires thoughts fo the fruit of the Spirit

‘Little Miss Figgy’s First Fig

garden tools pile up for work word worship

Work, Word & Worship

white cyclamen brighten a garden border

Savor the Day Our Savior is Born

blooming salvia leucantha shows the structure of the Temple menorah

Let There Be Light

big bee on purple salvia in the sunshine

Bee Still

« Previous
Next »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dennis Robinson

    August 30, 2018 at 4:08 am

    Thanks a lot for another great information. This website has been my gateway to information.

    Reply
  2. Marion Walton

    December 27, 2018 at 5:59 am

    Love to read this article. I am totally inspired by your work and got some great ideas. Thanks and keep sharing 🙂

    Reply
    • Shelley Cramm

      December 27, 2018 at 6:42 pm

      So glad for your encouragement, blessings to your garden of faith.

      Reply
  3. activeshaving.com

    December 27, 2018 at 6:02 am

    Excellent. Absolutely loved reading and very helpful at the same time !!

    Reply
    • Shelley Cramm

      December 27, 2018 at 6:40 pm

      Thank you, and best wishes to your garden work in 2019!

      Reply
  4. Sarah R.

    July 4, 2020 at 3:32 am

    I grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow. This kind of blog helped me a lot whenever I want new gardening ideas.
    The lesson I have thoroughly learned, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives. Thanks again for this article!
    Do you have a newsletter by email?

    Reply
    • Shelley S. Cramm

      July 10, 2020 at 2:57 pm

      Amen, there is no better place to be surrounded in God’s love and happiness for us than in the garden!! Youa re welcome, so glad you stopped by to read, and yes, sign up for the newsletter & blog delivery to your inbox on the homepage, “Keep in touch with garden In Delight.”

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • A-to-Z Primer of Plants from God’s Word
  • About Shelley S. Cramm
  • Blog
  • Book Table
  • Books
  • Checkout
  • Contact
  • Continuing the Biblical Botanical Gift Book Series
  • Devotions Blog
  • Events
  • Events & Speaking
  • Family Garden
  • God’s Word for Gardeners Bible
  • Home
  • In the News garden in Delight links
  • Modern Calendars Page
  • News
  • Plant Guide
  • Plant Index – God’s Word for Gardeners
  • Plant Research
  • Proclamation of Faith
  • Resources
  • Speaking Calendar
  • Speaking Topics
  • test events

Site Footer

Garden in Delight - with Author Shelley Cramm
FacebookInstagramPinterestLinkedIn

Keep in touch with garden in Delight

Your information will never be shared with any third party.

Copyright © 2023 · Isaac Gardens, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Website by Stormhill Media
Log in