More lessons from my garden

Hurray!  This morning we awoke to no rain!  Time to get in the garden and start clearing up after the winter.  My first job was to sort out the strawberries as they give us fruit in June so there isn't much time to make sure they're ok.

It seems that weeds thrive in our winter while all the plants I try to cultivate seem to die.  The truth is that they are really only resting and sleeping, waiting for warmer weather to awaken again and give us so much.  So looking at the strawberry patch, I found quite a lot of weeds that needed to be cleared.  There was also a lot of dead leaves from last year's strawberry growth that needed to be cleared.

It was amazing how once I managed to clear away the weeds and the dead leaves, there was new life underneath all the chaos.  We know that the weeds tend to take over unless they are kept in check but what I realised also this morning is that the dead leaves, last year's growth not only stopped the new leaves from being seen, they were actually chokling them while on the same plant, covering them and stopping them from receiving the life-giving rays of the sun.

It isn't always easy to let go of what is passed but holding onto it can so easily stop new growth.  I was thankful for last year's leaves and the produce they gave us.  They served their purpose then but now the new life needs to come through and supply new and fresh fruit this year.  

Today is also Easter Sunday, the Day of Resurrection.  Thank you garden and my strawberry plants for showing me again the miracle of new life when everything seems dead and finished. God's creation can teach us so much.  He that has eyes let him see! 

All Things New

Well. here we are in a new year.No doubt some have made resolutions that possibly will be broken within the first 2 weeks or so of January while others will be hoping for a better year than the last one. Whether you are in either of these groups or neither, the thing about the new year is that it is new.  It's not just reliving the past year a bit differently. It's time that we haven't yet lived.  It's new, untouched, fresh.

I do smile when looking round the shops and seeing adverts about certain products that they are 'new and improved'.  We do tend to think of something that has been made better as something new, it's not like the old version.  

Actually it's either new or improved.  If it's improved then it really is the old with some slight difference in content or the way it's been put together.  Something new is something that hasn't existed before.  So this new year is new, having not been lived before, new opportunities, new adventures, new encounters.


With this in mind, I've been pondering about Jesus' words when he said 'A new commandment I give unto you'.  Many times he referred to Old Testament laws and commandments and then said 'but I say unto you ...'  His way wasn't just to be an improvement on the old, something rehashed, a sort of reinvention of the wheel so to speak.  It was to be something different, something that hadn't been considered before.  It was a new way of thinking, different attitudes and reactions, a different way of living.  


We are told that in Christ we are a new creation - not just the old but a bit more tolerant and maybe a bit more smiley than before, not so quick to react.  God is not just patching us up and repairing us, mending the bits that are broken.  He re-creates us.  Many people have the thinking that we gradually work our way up the spiritual ladder, improving as we go,  It's as though somehow we earn our entry into heaven by being more and more active within our local church community.  It's a bit like a scout or guide working to earn their badges of merit.  We don't seem to understand Jesus' teaching that God loves us, full stop.  We can't earn his love.  He is love.  Actually what Jesus said was not that we should be an improvement of our old self but a new creation and have different ways of doing things.  As he said to Nicodemus, we must be 'born again', become a new and different person   We have made following him a religion centred around the person of Jesus, while he was telling us to follow his teachings.  When after feeding the 5000 and the people wanted to make him their king, he rejected the idea.  Again when there were those who said that he was 'good', his reply was. 'Why do you call me good?  There is none good but one and that is God.'  He was always pointing us to God and showing us how to live the way God intended, showing his unfailing love to all and at all times by the way we live.  We are to be people of 'the way' of Jesus. 

I am just musing and wondering how will 2016 be a new year?  How am I a new person in him?  What does that look like?  I don't have all the answers and not everyone may agree with my rambling thoughts but I can't help wondering if we as his Church have not just re-formed and improved the Old Testament ways instead of doing a 'new thing'.  How much of Jesus' teaching do I actually live day by day?  How much do I really follow him and show God's all-embracing and ever present love through my daily living?  I pray that in this new year, God will guide me along new paths and reveal himself to me in new ways.   Happy New Year to you all.