Read Is. 5:1-2 slowly and note all the details this passage gives about God’s detailed gardening in our lives.

What a beautiful picture of God’s plan for the garden of our lives. God turns over the soil, plows, and prepares it. He picks out and plants the best plants. He builds a watchtower to watch the vineyard and to keep out the animals that would destroy the plants. He prepares for the fruit and the harvest that will come by building a winepress. God’s vineyard has every advantage. God as the gardener has every insight needed to make the garden grow to its maximum. God loves us so much that He will never make a mistake in the garden of our lives. We may not like or even understand His gardening methods at times, but by faith we have to remember He is the gardener and He loves us.

We waste a lot of energy trying to be in God’s position and trying to do His job. We pray and seek Him many times, but if He does not answer us up to our standards and timing, we are tempted to take things into our own hands. Control is addictive and is a lifestyle we can easily justify in the world in which we live. Control is also destructive to our intimacy with God.   It slips in, decision by decision, as we begin to think we are capable enough to figure out our own life. Control is the very thing that breaks up marriages, divides committees and churches, ruins friendships and builds walls in relationships. Control says, “I know best for me and I am entitled to my way!” Control is wanting my way. It is pride and it is sin.

Remember, we can run around in the mad rush of life bringing many results with our own control, but if we are not under our Gardener’s care, we end up with a whole lot of rotten stuff on the ground of self-absorption and self-directed living. Take time to  pray and let God convict you of any areas where you have put yourself in control.  Yield those areas to the Master Gardener and stand back and be amazed at the fruit He will bring in your life.

-Michelle Sterling